Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 517
WallsRSolid writes "Microsoft just finished a week-long series of lectures and demos at my university, and the product that really stole the show was the Tablet PC. I was in a room with probably 150 hardcore linux users, and it seemed to me that the demonstration just floored them (the entire lecture hall CHEERED a Microsoft product). I believe that Microsoft's own online hype literature is insufficient in describing just how powerful their Tablet concept is. A July preview, Acer's propaganda, a press release about their initial success, and a behind-the-scenes account (good article) of the enabling technology. Oh, and the input stylus is electromagnetic, not pressure-sensing, ANY document (not just MS) can be annotated, and the journal software is AMAZING in its power and flexibility."
Wondering what's a Tablet PC? (Score:5, Informative)
Tablet PCs Are Nothing New (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wondering what's a Tablet PC? (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, no. The IBM ThinkPad 710 [ibm.com] was out in 1993, and it featured an electromagnetic stylus. Once again, no innovation whatsoever on part of Microsoft.
Re:My problem with M$... (Score:2, Informative)
so much for m$ innovation.
I've been to that presentation (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tablet PCs Are Nothing New (Score:2, Informative)
This is SOP for Microsoft, though. They always destroy someone else's innovative technology via the usual anticompetitive means (or just plain FUD), then release that same technology a few years later amid great fanfare as if it is a great new idea from Microsoft.
Re:Tablet PCs Are Nothing New (Score:3, Informative)
Tried one yesterday (Score:5, Informative)
Pro's:
Nice feeling pens (there are two)
The swivel idea is nice, abeit a little fiddly.
It looks cool!
It's pretty small and light
Windows Journal is very nice
Con's:
Windows XP is as slow as a dog! I don't know what spec the machine is, but there is very noticable latency between clicking and menu's appearing for example. This might have something to do with it having an absolute shitpile graphics card.
There is no positive feedback that you have clicked. A tiny click sound would improve usability 110%. This is where the whole thing really fails. I found myself reverting to the touchpad in a few minutes because it was just so frustrating to try and double-click.
The onscreen keyboard is good, but the handwriting recognition is both crap and slow (about 1.5 seconds delay after writing 'jpixton').
The screen has a protector on it which makes it rather reflective.
Fiddly as fuck for clicking anything small. They really need to realise you can't just use a pen with windows which was designed to be used with a mouse. They need to alter the user interface to be more usable with a pen!!
Anyone remember 'Pen' computing (Score:3, Informative)
Clearly there is demand for this type of thing if it is well done and well integrated, but there is little to be learned from a rigged demo. The technology background piece has some interesting tidbits, but it doesn't seem like any of the interesting research is coming from MS in the first place.
If we are lucky, some interesting hardware will be built with higher quality input devices, and maybe that will spark some good research. Research is better done in open source, so hopefully the hardware drivers will be available to make this work in Linux.
I never trust MS presentations... (Score:5, Informative)
Oddly enough, nothing worked as well for me as it did for those smart, attractive demonstrators. Perhaps I wasn't smart (or attractive) enough but it seens more likely to me that the demonstrations were carefully staged to only show the best side of the product and hide any flaws.
Of course, most presentations are like this... but this one sticks in my mind as a stark example. I've warned all our people to view all such "dog and pony shows" with a good deal of skepticism... but this goes double for those done by MS, in my opinion. What you see may not be what you get.
Tablet PC (Score:3, Informative)
In our demonstrations Microsoft never claimed credit for the tablet concept, and the demonstrators did acknowledge that the idea has been around for some time. They are selling the difference in that a) the new tablet PCs are now affordable and b) the OS can run anything Windows XP can run.
For approximately the price of a laptop, you get a somewhat more mobile but less powerful laptop. Acer's includes an integrated keyboard. They are nifty, but I wouldn't say that the Linux users in the audience stood up and cheered by any stretch of the imagination. Right off the bat they have their drawbacks. CD/DVD isn't integrated (which would be difficult at that size, although they have lots of ports to use), the voice recognition is still somewhat weak, and as I mentioned, they are somewhat less powerful than laptops at the same price. On the other hand, people can carry them around like they're a pad, people can annotate in any program, it makes using drawing programs a lot better, and it has the best handwriting recognition software I've ever encountered (that is what impressed me the most).
All in all, they are selling the tablet PC as "an idea that's time has come." I don't know if that's true; if my area decides to support them I will probably use one, but I wouldn't go out and purchase one myself at this point.
Tablet PC in person (Score:5, Informative)
These are my personal impressions, your mileage may vary.
First of all the handwriting recognition is not amazing. It does a fair job if you print in capitals, but writing joined up as neatly as possible gave unusable results. The recognition system really should have been better for the simple fact that when using a TabletPC you are not going to be leaning the device on table, but standing holding it in one hand with the pen in your other. This contributes to wobble (try writing neatly on a paper notepad with a pen while standing - notice your handwriting isn't so great?). So for a device like this, this is an important point - it should have been better, and as it is, I guess it's only *just* about passable.
My other complaint about the handwriting is that the screens on both devices were very smooth, and this meant that there was very little tactile feedback when writing, which promotes large scribbly handwriting. Notice how when you use a normal pen and paper there is resistance as you write? This is not present and promotes bad handwriting.
But enough about the handwriting - I really don't see how this is a revolutionary product. It's a laptop with handwriting recognition (and some have no keyboards).
That is about it - and because of the form factor being so small on most of the available devices you lose out on a whole lot of functionality (DVD, good graphics HW, CD burning, Large HDD etc etc etc.)
Plus, on the two devices Microsoft was showing off (so presumably the best two available devices) the battery life was appalling - at around 1 - 2 hours. For a portable device like this to succeed, we need to see 'day's use' longevity, which will probably realistically mean 6 -8 hours. So what gives, there are fully fledged notebooks available with TWICE the battery life of this device, which is supposed to be more personal and available 24/7 than a notebook.
Plus (and it could be because I only had it for 20 mins) the way that Windows Tablet edition responds to the pen is very confusing, you write away and all of a sudden it thinks you are trying to press buttons, and all sorts of stuff gets clicked on, then it'll calm down for the last couple of words of your sentence and go back to recognising handwriting.
And what's more, the two MS employees openly stated their pessimism for the devices, and admitted they had no idea how to use the interface.
Plus - with the devices that are simply going to be like a notebook without the keyboard half (rather than the notebook like ones that have an actual keyboard that folds around to the back of the screen) how on earth is the screen protected? A pouch? A cover? If so - this seems more ungainly than a conventional ultralight notebook (Vaio, PowerBook G4 etc).
And the things are *heavy*.
Sorry, but I was very underwhelmed by the Tablet PC, and find it surprising to hear of this reaction (cheering, clapping) from *anybody* let alone people who you'd expect to understand more about the industry
There is nothing special about the Tablet PC, it's *just a small notebook with handwriting recognition* - and my final justification is that apparently the devices will cost *A LOT* - thousands of GBP. -Peter
Re:Chinese Characters (Score:3, Informative)
Not only this is perfectly feasible, but Microsoft already has such a technology. To see it in action, install the support for Japanese on Windows (any version above NT 4 and 98 should do), and activate the Japanese input method in an Unicode-aware application (for example Opera, or NT Notepad). Open the IME pad (left-click on the red pen icon in the system tray, select the menu item), activate the hand-writing mode (click on the menu that displays the current input mode, "Soft Keyboard" by default, to get the list of modes), and experiment
Keyboard input is also possible: write the translitteration of the word, and a drop-down menu will present all the ideograms that match, and remember your choice for the future
More balanced TabletPC storeis from ZDNet (Score:2, Informative)
All that is old will be new again (Score:5, Informative)
At least they're smart enough to implement it coherently unlike a dozen or so who've tried previously. It sounds like this product is about 70% of what a Dynabook is supposed to be.
-- Multics
Re:This is super-exciting! (Score:5, Informative)
What university?
Carnegie Mellon University.
What did they cheer for, other than nebulous "amazement?"
They cheered for the fact that their product blends handwriting recognition with Windows applications that are already in widespread use. Advantages over Palm OS: Larger, color screen; easier ability to add wireless. Advantages over Newton: Tablet PC has a large company actively backing it; larger, color screen; compatible with Office and other widely-used applications. Advantages over Linux: the hwr-devel kernel module has been stuck at version 0.2.5a since 1997, and doesn't support any hardware made in the time since then.
What hype are you refering to, and exactly how is their "hype literature" insufficient?
Their hype literature [microsoft.com], like many such pages, is pretty shallow.
How is that better? Is an electromagnetic stylus a requirement of the Microsoft technology?
Yes.
Can I annotate OpenOffice documents?
Yes, with the openoffice-hwr-devel module, currently at version 0.0.1a on SourceForge. If you'd like to see this technology implemented, write it yourself. That's the power of open source.
What exactly does it do that's powerful and flexible?
It lets you use handwriting recognition.
What marketing crap. None of this is new. (Score:4, Informative)
Tablet PCs have been around for more than a decade at least. Fujitsu has the Stylistic and Point lines (some of them very current and very powerful), Casio has the Fiva, Panasonic and Sharp have models, and even the IBM ThinkPad line was originally given its name because the first models were tablet PCs with essentially the same form factor. A number of smaller manufactueres have also been making high-end tablet PCs. Just go to eBay and search for 'tablet pc' and you'll se models running the gamut.
Natural handwriting recognition that works has been around forever. The Newton line of PDAs (which admittedly had trouble in early revisions) had very accurate natural, full-speed handwriting recognition and the ability to annotate documents in ink on a largeish, screen by the mid-90's with the release of the 2000/2100 series. These things can open imported MS Office documents in NewtonWorks and you can mark them up to your heart's content. Meanwhile, Paragraph's Calligrapher (eventually to become Microsoft's Transcriber in a licensing deal) has been available for years for Windows CE tablet PCs (which aren't even mentioned among the models above) and also provided natural handwriting recognition and digital ink for annotating documents. The same Paragraph product for full-fledged tablet PC's was known as PenOffice and provided all of this functionality for users of Tablet PCs running full-fledged Windows. Even Microsoft has done this before (years before) with MS Pen Extensions.
Why is it that Microsoft can always get away with digging up, licensing and/or copying a bunch of old technology that everyone has been before, then throwing a party and calling it their own new invention? It saddens me to think that ten years from now people will believe that MS invented the tablet PC, just like they now believe that Microsoft invented multitasking, databases, graphics, the mouse, the concept of application windows, and the Internet.
Re:Tablet PCs Are Nothing New (Score:5, Informative)
I used to annotate my documents using digital ink editing marks and notes and digital ink diagrams as well as write some documents using natural handwriting recognition on my Fujitsu Stylistic using PenOffice. This particular model was more half a decade old -- it had a Pentium 100 CPU and an 800x600 display and ran Windows 95 + Office 95.
This is nothing new.
What happened to my Stylistic running Windows 95? I replaced it with an Apple Newton, yet another product which allows you to store digital in annotations and sketches for office documents and then recognize them later if you wish, but which is half the size of the Stylistic. The Newton 2000 was also released half more than half a decade ago. The Newton even has a cute "digital ink eraser" technique for editing your sketches and annotations.
Most of the technology Microsft is demonstrating right now has been licensed from existing products (like PenOffice and Calligrapher) that have been on the market for years already. It's not exactly a secret.
Yes, we read the article. But do you know what you're talking about?
Re:I've been to that presentation (Score:2, Informative)
The handwriting recognition was really impressive. He had bad handwriting and it still recognized it. There was some handwriting that I even had trouble reading that was converted to text correctly. The tablet recognized handwriting from all angles, even upside down!
As other people have mentioned, it is using a dictionary to figure out what you probably wrote. The only time that it messed up it read "This is a test" as "This is arrest." He then clicked on arrest and pulled up the alternatives. The closest thing there was atest, which he selected and then entered a space.
Re:how long.. (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry, my Sharp Zaurus actually runs Linux and has a better handwriting recognition than my Palm had.
Corel Grafigo (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wondering what's a Tablet PC? (Score:2, Informative)
And, of course, you could run all of your PC applications on the Apple Newton. I'm sure you're convinced that back then you could hack it and somehow get it to run X86 code?
And, Linux is a completely new way of computing... You create an OS based on many commercial and collegiate products, you make it run on your PC because you can't afford to buy a computer that typically runs unix. Then you write a bunch of software that is almost a complete copy of everything available for unix. Then linux software continues to "evolve" and a bunch of software that is a direct clone of Windows software is created. Most of this is distributed as "open source" freeware that prevents anyone from using it in a commercial product without releasing all of their source code (because, clearly it is innovation that can't and shouldn't be incorporated into anything that is sold). With the craving for free stuff (and if it's not currently free, write your own and distribute it for free) people are striving for some real innovation. Trying to sabotage the commercial software industry they work for! HUH??! Why would you do that?
Companies that sell products they've spent countless hours developing get to see the open source community "innovate" by cloning their software and giving it away?!? There seems to be an alterior motive there that is not completely stable. It's one thing to give away software using code that you've entirely developed, but if you clone someone else's GUI's or someone else's file formats... Are you violating their copyright? They can't use your stuff in their source code without releasing all of their source code, but you can reverse engineer or clone their stuff and openly distribute it?1?!
I'll buy the whole anti-Microsoft BS this forum tends to attract when Linux actually begins to widely innovate. What the heck is so new about creating a glorified unix emulator to run unix and emulated windows programs?
On the other hand, instead of MINDLESSLY flaming Microsoft, again and again, you COULD write a free way to run it (the tablet PC hardware) in Linux, as well as reverse engineer Microsoft's "digital ink", that way you could buy the product, which you probably want regardless of what you'll publicly say on this forum, and use it in your house to write idiotic comments on
And of course, all the common folk will come flocking to you (for free) and ignore all of that Multi-billion dollar corporation BS from Microsoft... that is, of course, until you're a day late in getting out of beta. Plus, now that you've driven Microsoft out of business we can just all build our own proprietary platforms and not have to worry about those stupid standards that have made PCs so cheap to tinker with.
That would be a heck of a new way to look at computing! Shut the hell up!
Re:What's wrong with a keyboard? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wondering what's a Tablet PC? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:guerilla marketing (Score:4, Informative)
I've been absolutely astounded on the number of people in this discussion who have completely blown off the topic. Microsoft does produce some quality products, and they are very attractive as employers (the purpose of the visit was one of recruitment), despite all of the Evil Empire BS that flies around.
Re:People aren't patents (Score:3, Informative)
you're stupid.
If you want to understand what MS research is, why dont you visit the web sites ? I'll give you a hint. At a research university, there are a bunch of faculty. They cut their time between doing research and teaching. Big name professors are big names because of their research interests, publications, and sometimes industry connections. Not because they're swell teachers.
MS research is similar. Except nobody wastes any time teaching.
It is typically NOT the case that research in MSR is vagely related to something that can be productized. It is PURE computer science research, in a wide variety of areas. Sometimes, some of this research has huge upside for something MS wants to do with a product. Sometimes that takes years. You should browse through the different projects and talks on the MSR site, and ask yourself how much of that you see in MS products today.
As far as "creative freedom", well, i happen to know a few people at MSR that are doing their work on linux, because they feel like it.
Re:This is super-exciting! (Score:3, Informative)
No idea about whether it works with anything but the latest and greatest Office apps. Someone else mentioned OpenOffice, for which support is unlikely; Microsoft has nearly EOLed Office 97, so that's unlikely as well.
The lecture series was called "Microsoft Days @ CMU," and was sponsored by Microsoft with the support of the School of Computer Science. Microsoft paid the bills; SCS provided the rooms. While it was promoted heavily through direct e-mail campaigns and on-campus flyers, the web presence for it is limited to a calendar entry [cmu.edu] on the SCS web site and a plug on Microsoft's College site [microsoft.com]. You may also want to contact Assistant Dean for Industrial Relations Catherine Copetas [mailto] for any direct inquiries.
Hope this helps.
Re:electromagnetic stylus!=good (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe someone can make a hybrid version.
Re:People aren't patents (Score:3, Informative)
Numbers and Planets: Those born on the 30th of the month are ruled by the number 3, and by the planet Jupiter. Those ruled by the number 3 generally try to rise to the highest positions in their particular sphere. Because Jupiter also rules Sagittarius, expansive, optimistic and magnanimous influences are maximized for November 30 people but, indeed, excessive tendencies are as well. Those ruled by the number 3 love independence, so November 30 people may do best free-lancing or in business for themselves.
But as I said, stupid is relative. I agree that I may not know MSFT internals as well as you appear to. As such, I'd consider myself "uninformed" on the topic. But, stupid? No. Your website, is stupid [sarcasm], but I digress.
I do give you credit for your argument, and that's what matters. Just mark me as your Foe, and we'll move on.