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With Launch of Tablet PCs, Pen-Based Computing Is a Reality | |
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| Time: 13:05 EST/18:05 GMT | News Source: Microsoft Press Release | Posted By: Byron Hinson | ||
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It's been a while since handwriting made history - about 3,500 years, in fact, since Sumerian tradesmen began etching lists in clay. With today's launch of the Tablet PC, Microsoft and its partners make handwriting news: The Tablet PC joins handwritten input and digital processing to make pen-based computing a reality.Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates displays a new Tablet PC in New York, Nov. 7. Click image for high-res version. That's good news for mobile corporate workers, who can now bring the full power of a PC to situations where a keyboard and mouse are inconvenient or inappropriate. | ||
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| #1 By 2332 (12.105.69.158) at 11/7/2002 3:29:55 PM |
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I went to the launch party in Boston.
Most of the presentation was boring as hell, with lots of marketing baloney... but, about 25 minutes into it, BOOM... they started demonstrating the Tablets. OMG. Such COOL stuff. We then all go to play with them. Here is my score for each tablet, 1 (worst) to 10 (best). Obviously, there are relative (to each other) scores... Compaq - 5 This was a big surprise. The Compaq had a very cool look, and had a nifty detachable keyboard (also a cool dock!), but it had HORRIBLE response. The mouse pointer was wigging out the entire time I was using it. It was hard to click, much less write anything. There might have been something wrong with the demo unit, though. If there was something wrong, I would pump up the score to a solid 8.5... but until that's confirmed, stay away from this one. Electroviya - 7 I probably didn't spell their name right, but anyway; it was a pretty good tablet-only model. Felt a bit heavier than the Viewsonic, and not quite as durable. Similar in response. Viewsonic - 8 Probably the best tablet-only model. Light, bright, and durable. Also very responsive. Fujitsu- 8 Pretty good convertible. About the same weight of the Toshiba... perhaps a bit less. Basically a Toshiba clone, but with worse quality. :-) Toshiba - 8.5 This convertible model was awesome. Great in every category except weight. Coming in at 4lbs, it was one of the heaviest models, and you definitely feel the weight after a few minutes. Other than that, it rocked. Acer - 9.5 As expected, the Acer was the best of the show. Very light, awesome feel, great battery life. This is the one I'm getting. This post was edited by RMD on Thursday, November 07, 2002 at 15:31. |
| #2 By 2332 (12.105.69.158) at 11/7/2002 3:37:58 PM |
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#2 - Well, it was Mesoamericans that were the first to invent writing. (Arguably). This was around 3000 BCE. The people of Sumer were a close second, though.
Of course, we have to define what we mean by writing. Are we talking alphabets? Syllabraries? Pictobraries? A combination of all three? As early as 3500 BCE, Mesoamericans were keeping simple written records, like drawings of people and a combination of dots and slashes to depict transactions. (Who owes who what goods.) |
| #3 By 61 (65.32.170.1) at 11/7/2002 3:50:37 PM |
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nom: Once again, you show your true stupidty, do yourself a favor and just don't post.
As the saying goes, better to keep your mouth shut and have everyone think your an idiot than to open it and prove them right. hamper: and here we go again.... TabletPC supports English, German, Japanese, and many other languages, but those three languages are probably about 95% of the market, and thus has very good language support... don't say something is bad because it doesn't support YOUR native language. That is both stupid and selfish. Most of the displays are at least 14in or 15in (about the same size a notebook). You aren't going to get any higher-resolution than what is currently available to notebook LCDs. In both of your statements, I apply the same exact saying as I did to nomdlev. |
| #4 By 3653 (63.162.177.140) at 11/7/2002 3:53:24 PM |
| Going to the launch party tonight in Nashville. Yee-Haw! |
| #5 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 11/7/2002 6:18:17 PM |
| RMD - I've heard some talk that the Compaq model is still a very early development model and isn't entirely stable. They probably still have some bugs to work out. |
| #6 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at 11/7/2002 7:47:05 PM |
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Soda - Ya, I don't know. The guy at the Compaq booth said it was shipping next week.
If they're shipping that model, they're insane. All it will do is give both TabletPC and Compaq a bad name. Such a shame, too... their form factor is probably the coolest of the bunch. |
| #7 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/7/2002 9:15:28 PM |
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Bill went through the evolution of the devices leading to the TPC at the launch. He even mentioned the Newton. :-)
For those that missed it, go here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/tabletpc/keynote.asp The videos are being archived, so the links are down currently, but they should be back up soon. |
| #8 By 1868 (141.133.152.53) at 11/7/2002 9:26:20 PM |
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RMD,
It looks like we missed each other at the boston launch! And I agree that that marketers took up way too much time, and I have to agree the Acer was the best of show. The guy at the compaq both also told me that they would be shipping their tablets by Christmas, and he hoped they would be out by next week. I go to bentley college here in Waltham, MA. |
| #9 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 11/7/2002 9:29:46 PM |
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parker - The GRiDpad was quite the rage when it came out around 1990...
I found some pictures of them: http://www.griduk.com/museum.htm |
| #10 By 3339 (64.175.42.148) at 11/7/2002 9:36:31 PM |
| Yeah, let's be clear--this was not Bill's vision. This goes back to the beginning and if you want to attach the "vision" idea to any one or more person, it would have to be Doug Engelbert and J.R. Licklider. Otherwise, people have been working on it since the sixties. |
| #11 By 3653 (65.190.70.73) at 11/7/2002 10:07:41 PM |
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IMHO, the real VISIONARY is the person who not only dreams up the idea... but also the person that figures out the hard part... which is HOW TO BRING IT TO MARKET.
I just got back from the launch tonight. I was quite impressed. If I were in the market for a pc at home, I would buy one. I think I'll get one to try at work, but the decision isn't a slamdunk (I'll admit that). I disagree with the thought that the OCR wasn't good. I was very impressed with it. Out of around 3 minutes of writing, it got 2 letters wrong. And my writing included proper names. Is there ANY credible long-term competition for this market (pen-based computing)? Any Linux or OS alternatives? |
| #12 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 11/7/2002 11:03:13 PM |
| Big surprise here, JWM as his usual positive self. |
| #13 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at 11/7/2002 11:32:07 PM |
| #19 - Zeo... cool. I work in Cambridge. |
| #14 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at 11/7/2002 11:44:54 PM |
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Listen people.... the "visionary" is rarely the one who actually develops a useful product.
Think Edison invented the light bulb? No... there were almost a dozen crappy light bulbs in existence before he made one that worked well. Think the inventor of the automobile was the one who got rich off it? Nope... it was Nick Otto, and he never made a dime because his version of the engine sucked, and it wasn't until Daimler created the first motorcycle and eventually the first truck that the engine was a success. Think James Watt invented the steam engine? Nope, he simply added a few vital improvements that made it useful... first at pumping water from mines, and later for more well known applications. Think Whitney invented the cotton gin? Nope, he simply modified an existing design so that it could handle short staple cotton... the long staple version had been working fine for THOUSANDS of years. Think the Wright brothers invented the plane? Nope again. They had the first manned flight, but the unmanned plane was invented by Langley, and, in fact, manned glider flights had also occurred years before the Wright brothers made their famous flight. Think Morse invented the telegraph? Wrong again... his work was preceded by at least three others, including Joseph Henry, William Cooke, and Charles Wheatstone. The point is that just because you're first, doesn't mean you have some kind of monopoly on innovation. Watt, the Wright brothers, Edison, and Morse were all brilliant innovators, and if it wasn't for them, we may not have ever seen the inventions of others turn into the applications of today. So before you start denying Microsoft credit for the Tablet PC, I suggest you all take a quick history lesson. This post was edited by RMD on Thursday, November 07, 2002 at 23:47. |
| #15 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 11/8/2002 9:45:19 AM |
| Others, though, say you get far more than 2 hrs of battery life. |
| #16 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 11/8/2002 1:06:19 PM |
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parker, that's still the vision I am ascribing to Engelbert and Licklider.
It was obvious to them in the 50s and 60s. It's one thing to say, the person who makes it a success is the visionary; it's another thing when that making-it-real takes over 30 years and is based on several companies and many, many peoples work, and it is still unknown how viable it is. Also, where at a time where, once successful, these features will be available to all PCs, devices, and OSes soon anyway... A slight lead with maybe a riskier market after 30 years of attempts is not visionary in my book. This post was edited by sodajerk on Friday, November 08, 2002 at 14:02. |
| #17 By 61 (65.32.170.1) at 11/8/2002 3:42:28 PM |
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jerk:
Oh shut up. If it had been any other company that had come up with the same type of product you would be hailing them as masters of technology and software. |
| #18 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 11/8/2002 4:49:09 PM |
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No, I wouldn't. I have a more nuanced sense of innovation beyond firsts, most successful, etc...
I was bored with parker drooling over Gates for something completely unoriginal, and thought people should know about 2 people who were highly original and innovative. That is all. |
| #19 By 61 (65.32.170.1) at 11/8/2002 5:31:39 PM |
| parker is definately an MS drone... or at least a Gates drone, I give you that. |
| #20 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 11/8/2002 8:01:21 PM |
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jeez, parker, you could try a little harder... Look into who Lick was... the intergalactic network is a silly term but it is exactly what the internet is, minus one element--he proposed that we would have user "agents." However, it appears we are moving towards agents as well--so back in 95-97, some were saying, "he got that part wrong." It's coming true over the next decade.
He also had other ideas! Wow, consider that--you find one of his ideas and stop looking. One of his most important pieces in called something like "Man-Computer Symbiosis" and he explains how more human interfaces besides the keyboard are necessary... He was already concerned with peer2peer collaboration, and Doug Engelbert had just developed the first mouse and was developing "Hypercard" systems and collaboration software. This lead Lick to the conception of users writing and drawing on tablets and easily exchanging and even collaborating on these documents via a computer in a normal, natural human system of exchange. Lick's whole conception of the more advanced computer-human interaction would be natural interfaces (including handwriting and voice) over a medium which could share and understand all of these inputs. He was a pyschologist at MIT, and even though he understood a lot of the comp sci going on, he wasn't really a computer scientist. But because of his own knowledge of psychology, not only did he develop and/or influence and/or predict a lot of our developments in user interfaces, but also in fundamentally technical issues--for example, he understand that transferring smaller "packets" of data asychronolously and sessionlessly would ultimately be the way to go--from a human need perspective as well as from a computer technology perspective. All of the early ARPANET guys, BBN guys, UCLA guys, etc.. from the period (late 50's to late 60s) would routinely consult him with their technical work because he could usually see the solution to the problem from a human perspective. Class dismissed. In fact, read this pdf--it has two of his articles, which are brief and an easy read, and only hint at some of the work he did... http://memex.org/licklider.pdf |
| #21 By 3339 (67.116.252.42) at 11/9/2002 6:13:58 PM |
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parker, you prove to be one of the most forcefully self-ignorant people I have encountered--I explained that Lick's vision wasn't exclusively focused on networks but also dealt with interactions, and his vision also had to do with human inputs and interfaces--including voice, handwriting, visual methods, etc... all integrated and interoperable.
What the hell does that have to do with McNealy? This specifically has to do with enabling the user to use computers in any and all settings using interfaces and inputs which are natural to man. |
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