“For over twenty years scientists have been dreaming about creating a real P.A.D.D., the slate device that the inhabitants of Star Trek used to record and access data as they moved around the starship Enterprise. There have been attempts to duplicate it over the years, but the Tablet PC may be the first successful incarnation. Some of this is timing – consumers are demanding more from their computers, and they want what the Tablet offers. The other reason is research – years of hard work and data gathering have made the Tablet PC possible.” Read the article at Microsoft Research.
Inventing the Tablet PC
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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…it is burried deap inside Windows XP on a laptop.
I think it deserves a better handheld UI and it belongs on an inexpensive, networkable, dedicated tablet. Not a laptop hybrid.
PalmSource should get into this market soon and show them how it’s done. Perhaps they can license or buy the Newton technology from Apple Computers.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if PalmSource were to make such an announcement tomorrow?
ciao
yc
PalmSource should get into this market soon and show them how it’s done.
Microsoft’s technology for recognizing hand written text is too strong compared to any other technology out there. They not only include English, but other languages too and their technology matured enough to build a hardware for it.
Laptop hybrid is a good choice, because people will write faster when they use keyboard. Writing with your hand will be a secondary choice, an essential one but not the first choice for entering lots of data to your computer.
>Microsoft’s technology for recognizing hand written …
I thought they licensed the technology from some other company. Can’t recall the name though.
florian lutz
I don’t recall the company that make them… but i recall hearing from devices like this much before…
[and on the other hand… it is just a Pocket PC with a very large LCD…]
Cheers…
Luis Ferro
P.S.- Another candidate for that site about “MS Inventions” that aren’t?
Next thing you know Microsoft will be taking credit for inventing the synchronous chip.
I thought they licensed the technology from some other company. Can’t recall the name though.
That could be true, but doesn’t matter though if they have the exclusive rights to the technology. The point is that it is their technology.
For example Quicktime is also licensed from another company, but it is Apple’s quicktime.
Microsoft’s handwriting recognition was licensed from a company called Paragraph. Of course, Paragraph’s own product (Calligrapher) works better than Microsoft Transcriber.
” Microsoft’s handwriting recognition was licensed from a company called Paragraph. Of course, Paragraph’s own product (Calligrapher) works better than Microsoft Transcriber.”
Also, I happened to recall that Microsoft bought aha! Software outright. aha! Software developed InkWriter and held many handwriting recognition patents.
Microsoft almost never develops anything new, they are just often the first to successfully cram it down the… er, market it.
You’re right I doubt Calligrapher can come close to the Newton handwriting recognition. I prefer doing one thing extremely well over doing “average” on many things.
Based on some demos that I have seen, Apple’s handwriting recognition is really incredible! No training is required, and it figures out the handwriting correctly even if you purposely try to write poorly.
The tablet pc is a XP laptop trapped in an expensive tablet.
ciao
yc
I saw one of these demo’d at a recent conference I attended. I was blown away by how versatile the digital ink technology is and how it is so deeply integrated with the OS. It convinced me that I must own a C100 or one of its descendents in the future – I can think of many uses for it where it will replace paper processes I currently have that I would like to automate. Until I actually saw a live demo of someone working with it I didn’t think it was anything particularly interesting.
Sure, the concept certainly isn’t new but Microsoft seems to have brought the technology to a level where it can be marketed successfully.
Although for some people they think typing is slower, in my case, I can type faster and more accurate that writing.
The last time I heavily wrote something was, well, too long ago, and I ended up spending half my time trying to show the person how to read by handwriting. No, I don’t do printing. Printing is for little kids who can’t hold a pencil correctly. I prefer cursive handwriting.
Mathew, typing is faster… for some things.
However, for me, I do things like take notes from my classes on my PocketPC, which would be especially hard in my math classes.
with this thing? Is it like those PocketPCs I have to recharge everyday? Or like the laptop that drains easy. I for one am not so sure that these thing are ready for consumer and enterprises. Let’s talk battery life. I want it measured in weeks not hours. Like it’s little brother, the PocketPC, it’s an expensive gadget. I bet when it’s dropped it breaks easy.
> Is it like those PocketPCs I have to recharge everyday?
Every day??? You’ve been fortunate.
Plug a WI-FI card into an iPAQ’s sleeve and count the minutes.
We developed a wireless app and found it was best to run the thing with an extension cord/AC power. Hopefully battery technology has improved marketedly in the past 12-18 months.
How good the hardware is? That’s the hardware maker’s problem. not Microsoft. 🙂 Same with battery life. I remember seeing a nice laptop running Crusoe with 10 hours of battery life (can you use 10 hours straight, BTW?).
Palm might know a thing or two about the PDA market (I doubt that… tell me, why is PocketPC gaining new ground each year?) – but they know nothing about the PC, more specifically laptop and even more specifically Tablet PC market.
It would be interesting to see what they can come up with.
Besides, I have recieved many emails telling me I’m a Microsoft slave (well, no I’m not) but as a Microsoft slave (which again, I’m not), I have to say this “article” is pure marketing crap 🙂 No appeal for geeks, only a bunch of people needing to be happy with their new purchase of their Acer C100.
I second what you said, but the fact is that battery life is still a big problem. My nephew’s GameBoy Advance has better battery life longevity than all PocketPCs!
The only palmtop I can recommend for corporations are the low priced ones from Palm. Especially the Zire, which I almost ummm…. bought, Ronald you pc junkie
i dont want to knock their research, but Alan Kay basically invented the “Tablet PC”, or dynabook back at PARC in the 70’s, but the technology wasnt advanced enough. since then, its only been a matter of time before someone attempted this succesfully.
and who uses images to mark up documents, surely it would be better kept in vector format so that the file size is low and theres a greater ability to do handwriting recognition at a later date?
Batteries (or cells) are the limiting factor in all curent hand held
or portable gadgets.
Fuel cells will be the answer, but I guess it will be about 15 years
before they are cheap and reliable.
One interesting idea is to incorporate a solar cell into the display
screen. It isn’t enough to completely replace the battery, but it
could usefully extend the times between charging.
This is new technology? What about PenPoint, Newton, EVEN Windows for Pen (3.11) 🙂 Of these probably PenPoint (Go corporation) was most advanced (and it also had electromagnetic stylus) – and it was in 1991 🙂 It’s a pity that the company went bust before it managed to properly market the product.
However I like the idea very much (I mean – the idea of keyboardless computer, that you can use more or less like a paper notebook). Guess it’s necessary to equip these devices (tabletPC’s) with proper operating system. What about KDE or GNOME fork tailored especially for pen based computing?
Also, have a look at http://www.alphasmart.com/products/dana_overview.html. Of course this still has keyboard, but what about PalmOS device that has A4, color screen, no keyboard, no harddisk (and hence is quiet)? With better weight than tabletPC, better battery life (days, not hours) etc. Please, I need such machine – and it is more than possible to manufacture one with today’s technology!!!
According to the MS Research piece, one target use of the tablet will be as a note-taking/document markup device for meetings. Can people write faster than they can type? Sure they can scrawl faster, but that would probably defeat the recognition engine (as well as human eyes). Also, they talk about novel compression algorithms for transmitting documents with handwritten markups – wouldn’t it be better to convert the markups to characters, strikethroughs, etc. first? I’m not convinced the tablet would be a big win for this particular scenario.
Re Gawron: Jerry Kaplan’s book “Startup” is an amusing history of Go Corporation which sheds light on the early days of commercial pen computing, including how Pen Windows and Newton were started (in short, they both ripped off Go’s idea) and how companies like IBM, AT&T Apple, and Microsoft operate. Microsoft’s Jeff Raikes in particular comes off as a shady, opportunistic character.
stahbird – Rock on, “Startup” is a spectacular behind-the-scenes look at how a small company tries to compete against the “powers that be”. Anyone interested in getting an inside look at dealing with Microsoft should read it. Even Be, Inc. lovers would get to see another side of JLG and Steve Sakoman.
Go’s tablet seemed like it could have been big. But like Geoworks found out with Microsoft pre-announcing Windows (which was nothing more than vaporware at the time) Microsoft has been promising “pen computing” for over ten years now.
I think the concept is good and if Microsoft was to deliver something really good it could change the world. Just ten years later than it should have been.
I think it deserves a better handheld UI and it belongs on an inexpensive, networkable, dedicated tablet. Not a laptop hybrid.
I don’t know about cost, but if I remember correctly some (if not most) of the tablets due to come out will not be hybrids. Personally, I’d rather have the hybrid, but that may simply be because I saw a laptop as too limited in it’s usefulness to actually buy one, whereas the tablet would be the same way if that’s all it was (much like a PDA, but definitely more useful than those), which means I might actually buy a hybrid, but not either a laptop or tablet. I like what I’ve seen of the Acer hybrid, but I want to get my hands on one and mess with it before I decide to actually make a purchase.
Sounds like it almost does as much as my Newton MP 2100. Come on Bill, Think Different!.
“Sure, the concept certainly isn’t new but Microsoft seems to have brought the technology to a level where it can be marketed successfully.”
“PenPoint (Go corporation) was most advanced. It’s a pity that the company went bust before it managed to properly market the product.”
To expand on (some of) the history of pen computing that some comments have alluded to;
The Go Corporation had a functional product in mid beta stages when Microsoft found out about it. At an industry trade show Go was showing their product and Microsoft sent someone to blatantly videotape it. Soon Microsoft had a “demo” (that means a non-functional, fake, misleading representation in Microsoft-speak) ot “their” competing product. Many potential buyers (resellers not consumers) decided they would wait to see what Microsoft offered before buying Penpoint products. (this is a marketing tactic Microsoft is infamous for) Of course, Microsoft took a long time before they were able to buy the technology to actually produce the product, meanwhile Go Corporation went under due to lack of sales. Since the Microsoft product basically a hung “bag on the side” of Windows it worked poorly. So if the market existed then for a tablet PC, Microsoft killed it. If one exists now, Microsoft want’s your money. If the market again indicates that it does not want tablet PCs, then the hardware manufacturers are going to take a hit, but Microsoft’s investment has been minimal.
” Microsoft’s handwriting recognition was licensed from a company called Paragraph. Of course, Paragraph’s own product (Calligrapher) works better than Microsoft Transcriber.”
Tablet does notuse Transcriber technology. The ink and handwriting reco in Tablet is far advanced from Transcriber. In truth, there is a team of Math Ph.D.s who sit around all day designing the reco algorightims for Tablet. It is most decidedly a Microsoft innovation.
As for other comparisons, Tablet in my mind is really a next generation laptop, not a PDA. The best Tablet I’ve seen has a rotating screen which can be folded down (in tablet mode) or flipped around to act as a laptop (with a full keyboard). Admittedly, this machine is much more expensive than a traditional laptop, but I don’t think it will be for long.
The handwriting software in tablet allows you to introduce handwriting at a cursor set in your previous handwriting without transcribing to text first. It allows you to apply effects like bold, italic, colors, highlight, etc… to your own handwriting, as well as send hand written emails. All in all, I think Tablet is very cool. If I was in a situation where I went to a bunch of classes, and took notes, or went to a bunch of meetings, I would find the technology indespensible.
“Personally, I’d rather have the hybrid, but that may simply be because I saw a laptop as too limited in it’s usefulness to actually buy one, whereas the tablet would be the same way if that’s all it was (much like a PDA, but definitely more useful than those), which means I might actually buy a hybrid, but not either a laptop or tablet.”
Very interesting you should say that. The Acer C100 is the first “laptop” I have ever considered buying as well, for exactly the same reason that you have stated.
stahbird:
Again, for some things, you it is simply much easier to take down notes by hand, ESPECIALLY in meetings, because you may need to draw a diagram, or perhaps because it’s MUCH easier to organize information when it’s hand-written.
Palm is a dying company. PalmSource is just a limb of Palm that fell off due to the parent company’s leprosy.
Palm has not innovated anything since the original Palm. The Microsoft Tablet is years beyond Palm can offer.
Just as a Compaq 386 was expensive when it came out, the Tablet PC is expensive now. But in a few years, it will be cheap.
When you look at value, even today the Palm is wretched. It gives you next to nothing for hundreds of dollars.
If I were a software company, I certainly wouldn’t be banking on Palm for my future.
OK. We’ll see.
Modern World:
I wouldn’t even call the original Palm an innovation, they basically tried to copy the Newton, and did an incredibly poor job at it…. in my eyes, Palm has been nothing but a thorn in the side of the handheld inudstry it’s entire existance (from its inception at 3Com up til now).
“Mathew, typing is faster…”
Only IF you can touch type.
“from its inception at 3Com up til now”
Palm’s inception was long before 3Com purchased the company.
Have you ever used a Newton CPUGuy? Do you know how big they are? Do you know how much you have to train one to get it to recognize your handwriting?
Basically, Palm created the handheld industry.
Yes, I actually have a Newton here… somewhere.
Yeah, they were big…. but you didn’t really have to train it very much.
My history is a little vague, I thought it started at 3Com, and then they went independant.