New Thinkpad To Combine Pen/Paper 97
Fervent writes: "You want handwriting recognition, but you want to have a real machine, not a PDA? You want as compact a machine as possible, maybe as small as a screen and some notebook paper? Check out the article on IBM's new Thinkpad which will be debuting Friday at the CES. The article is at ZDNet -- keyboard and mouse are optional."
Re:This sounds great... (Score:2)
Really? The Newton 130 and 2x00 are pen computing devices. And they don't require a whole new character/letter layout. (the pre 2.x versions of Newton Intelligence, well, sucked.)
Perhaps with newer and faster palms, these faster palms will be able to have useable handwriting interface without having to re-train the user.
The pocket PC line has the processor cycles, but many do not find the software compelling.
A True Notebook?... (Score:1)
I just can't figure why anyone would need to write something on paper?...I bet the government/insurance/healthcare people who need everything in double triplicate are driving the market for this contraption.
Cool, But... (Score:1)
PDA stream of consciousness... (Score:2)
Did I get it all? Ok, I'll just be getting to work, now...:) Seriously, is there anything in there that seems to be mutually exclusive? The keyboard is often a big one, because it's so hard to make a good portable one that doesn't take up much space and is yet still useful for people that type quickly. Other than that, I'd think that something like foldable smart paper would do it. Combined with some sort of docking station that had the keyboard? That was flexible enough to fold and put into a pocket, but when extended was stiff enough (like a clipboard) that you could hold it and write on it? Would the wireless connection need to be in the device itself, or could it be in the docking station, ala a Palm sync?
no! do not go back to pen! (Score:1)
problems with it since school. I was so
happy that currently you type almost
everything. Now these guys trying
to resurrect handwrting again! Somebody
please stop them!
Thanks IBM (Score:1)
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Re:Left Handed (Score:2)
IBM will also offer TransNote models for both right-handed and left-handed writers.
DYSLEXICS, UNTIE!
Too schweet.. but not for everyone. (Score:2)
This would be perfect for me (PDAs, particularly palmtops, have size and flexibility limitations for doing serious work) to use, if only it were cheaper. I'd buy it for $2000, but as always, laptops must be overpriced. I'd also like a (much) bigger screen, but that's asking for a little much.
History Repeating (Score:1)
Change design? (Score:1)
Slashdot & Pen Computers (Score:3)
Re:Transceivers? (Score:1)
Great idea but too heavy! (Score:1)
What makes this thing so heavy?
Re:Similar to the Cross Crosspad (Score:1)
Re:First Non-Broken IBM Keyboard Since 1984 (Score:1)
Heh, you should see the Thinkpad 240, it would really drive you nuts. It has a 'Function' key where the Ctrl-key normally is, and the Ctrl-key is packed between 'Function' and the space bar.
Oh, btw, it rocks my world for editting text, and I've never had any problems with CTRL on this or any other keyboard. You're just karma whoring.
Re:Oh no! (Score:1)
Same thing goes for business trips. I write ideas for software products into a laptop, but there are times when I want to draw pictures to help explain the idea. Again, I don't want a graphics tool, but to just draw something would be of great help.
Steven Rostedt
brilliant for people who take notes in the car! (Score:1)
i used to do tech support for lobbyists who drove many places, had phone meetings in transit, etc - they will LOVE this item.
and don't forget, the thinkpad 701 was not very well designed either! for example, the keyboard made it difficult for you to attach peripherals in the side ports after you opened it. they grew from that little model to the brilliance of their 300 and 600 series. therefore, i think this type of item will be improved in the same manner - over time.
Re:Calculations? (Score:1)
Read the very end... (Score:1)
Better for note taking (Score:1)
Big PDA (Score:2)
Of course this is not what the rest of the consuming world wants. IBM, back in the 80's did a poll and found that people said they wanted less, so they released the PC Jr. Which, of course, nobody wanted.
Re:Left handedness causes illiteracy? (Score:1)
I was interested in the machine, though not the article. Besides, what better a way to get a response than to post a smart assed comment?
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Re:Oh great, is this going to be another Newton? (Score:1)
Being able to scribble on paper, and then have it translated to text? That is even kewler. It'll leave you with a permanent deadtree record along with the data, ready for processing and distribution.
It's not a "laptop" (Score:1)
This will be fantastic (Score:1)
"I can only show you Linux... you're the one who has to read the man pages."
Left Handed (Score:2)
I already sacrifice enough with the mouse, the keyboard, the stick shift, the remote control, the roads, eating at restaraunts, doors, pr0n sites. This is right handed person's world, and I am sick of it.
LEFT HANDERS UNITE!
Buy from the Left-torium!
IBM Research Rocks! (Score:1)
Absolutely... IBM Research [ibm.com] is one of the most fascinating sites out there, IMHO. They've really come a long way from the old calculator makers.
Re:Similar to the Cross Crosspad (Score:1)
"Hey brand new thousand bucks"
Great, but looks right handed to me (Score:1)
Great, going to have great fun with this as a left handed person :-)
Re:Nice (Score:1)
I keep hearing that the new Thinkpads aren't as tough ad the old ones. Guess I'll keep mine.
Re:Pad and screen have opposite orientations (Score:2)
wouldn't writing on the pad mash the keys against the table?
My impression is that there is no keyboard on the unit, just a place to plug in an external keyboard.
I think that there's a real niche market for this kind of thing. I attend meetings and would love to have my huge financial spreadsheets available without printing out 60 pages of output.
But 5 pounds and 2.5 hours battery life dosn't seem all that useful. I have some meetings that go on longer than that.
Left handedness causes illiteracy? (Score:1)
Or at least the dreaded Post-Before-Reading Syndrome. Quoting the very last line of the article:
Re:Left Handed (Score:2)
Mouse, generally use with right hand leaves left hand free for more important things.
Keyboard, all the good letters (well, A and E are the 2 most common letters and they're on the left) are on the left side seems a lefty advantage to me.
Stick shift, I can't really call this one. Depends on where you live. I find that the US style where the shifter is operated with the right hand is good for the lefty. It leaves the left hand free for steering, smoking, eating, phone talking and other tasks that require more finger dexterity than pushing a lever with a shoulder motion.
The roads, I'm not sure how this is a particular advantage one way or another except as to how it relates to the placement of the shifter.
Eating, advantage lefty here!! You get to start with the fork right under the hand you're going to use it with.
Doors, can be a little akward for leftys sometimes.
pr0n sites, advantage lefty! You're using the mouse with your right hand and your left hand is free for more important things ;)
The only time when I have a real problem with being a lefty is when I'm using power tools. Most power tools are setup so that the dangerous part is away from your body when the tool is held in the right hand. This of course places the dangerous part right next to your body when operated lefty style. Not good!!
_____________
Re:Pretty cool tech... (Score:1)
And I'm agreeing with you on getting laptops more acceptable. We're getting to the point of disposable desktops, but a low-end laptop is still usually at least $1000. We get laptops down to ~$500, and they'll finally be for The Rest of Us.
Re:Hummm... (Score:1)
Re:Left handedness causes illiteracy? (Score:1)
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Re:Left Handed (Score:1)
Damn! How many focus groups does it take... (Score:2)
1. All people really want is a slim tablet-shaped box with rounded corners, that has a touch sensitive TFT-style LCD screen on top, and a stylus that doesn't have a wire attached to it.
2. The screen needs to be about twelve inches diagonal or better, and the box needs to be as slim as possible.
3. Software just has to be capable of collecting written and drawn pages, and storing and retriving lots of them.
4. Operation in note-taking mode must be silent.
5. The box should have a keyboard, ethernet, and video output port.
6. When attached to a keyboard, the critter should act like a full-blown pentium-class pc.
Everything else is optional. This gets you the ability to take notes without paper, and without scaring the rest of the people in the meeting. It gets you the ability to read and use the computer while curled up on the couch, or sitting in the airport waiting for the flight. When you need a keyboard, you can either get a fold-up one or simply borrow one, and prop up the screen so it looks like a workstation. At home or office you simply have stock keyboard and bigger monitor.
It's been done before (Score:1)
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Re:It's been done before (Score:1)
Selling to the rock and the hard place... (Score:1)
While I'm very interested in getting rid of the keyboard/mouse combo and I'm curious to see new handwriting recognition software, I find it hard to believe that laptop users will move down to this device or that handheld users will sacrifice their small size and speed for the extra computing power. I see this selling to a small population purely on geek factor. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't see a revolutionary idea here.
This sounds great... (Score:1)
Yeah, but I type much faster than I write (Score:1)
Doesn't this remind you of the pen based 486's that were being sold at a big discount in 1994, maybe $300 for a 486/25 with 4/80?
Oh great... (Score:2)
Not that I care - I learned how to type when I was fairly young (even though boys didn't normally take typing in my school) because my handwriting is atrocious. The last thing I need is for a computer to start nagging me about that.
About time (Score:1)
Nice (Score:1)
I've already been doing this... (Score:1)
It is much more convenient to work with a pen like device when only one hand is available I have found (no, the other hand isn't anywhere near my pants).
Byzandula
Re:This sounds great... (Score:1)
Re:About time (Score:1)
Pen-based. (Score:1)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The COBOL Warrior
Re:This sounds great... (Score:2)
Good Idea it Seems... (Score:2)
This is probably appropriate for a very large market - for example I often take notes whilst interviewing people - it's rude to type during a meeting (perhaps that's a culture thing, but then you should be sensitive to it), so I write quick notes and type up minutes afterwards. This would be very very useful in my case, and many others I can think of.
On the other hand, it's not necessary, just useful - the current way works too. And if this thing gets overtaken by something else within 9 months, it's going to miss my company's refresh cycle on PCs, and it will pass us by. Also, it suffers from the fact that it's newness classifies it as a gadget in the minds of those who have budgets, and so maybe it won't sell quite so well as a consequence.
I don't think I'll get one, either personally or through my work, but I like the fact that IBM push the ideas envelope and make things like this - not bad for a monolithic blue-chip.
Pretty cool tech... (Score:3)
I so want it (Score:1)
Only real question to me is how portable is it really. Ideally I would probably design this to be more like a pda but I would be willing to pay a lot more for it than I do a pda.
So where are those webpads we keep hearing about as internet connectivity is also something I want in this (I'm sure you can attach a wireless modem to the thinkpad).
CES ended last tuesday (Score:1)
Re:A True Notebook?... (Score:1)
Chaswell Freewill
... Notebook (Score:1)
Re:Pity. (Score:2)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
What about us lefties? (Score:1)
I am left handed. I see no indication from the article that I will be able get a model suitable to one who uses a pen with his/her sinister manus.
Am I wrong here? Anyone from IBM care to comment?
they must be reading my posts (Score:2)
Well although this may not be the end all of ideas, it is good to see that someone is thinking about new means of inputs.
Personally I'd like a handwriting recognition pad for my computer at home and at work. So that I could use the stylis(sp) as a pointer as well as a partial replacement for the keyboard.
You know I am not talking about replacing the keyboard and mouse, but I am talking about making more available and less expensive alternate means of computer input.
It will be funny if in 10 years we have a full generation of repetitive stress syndrome people cause they are all forced to use computers with primitive keyboards & mouse from first grade through college. Then we will be forced to come up with new ideas.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Re:Good Idea it Seems... (Score:1)
Hmm, I wonder if I had a point in mind when I hit reply, because I don't know.
Devil Ducky
Re:Pretty cool tech... (Score:3)
Re:Change design? (Score:1)
not new. (Score:1)
If I had to choose whether to take my laptop, Crosspad, PDA, or Transnote, I would not choose Transnote It seems the bulkiest possible combination of the Crosspad + notebook.
Re:Left Handed (Score:1)
But in my opinion laptops are kind of personal computers and in this point of view having two models are enougth.
--
"take the red pill and you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes"
Re:Change design? (Score:1)
Re:Left Handed (Score:1)
I read somewhere that we southpaws have a propensity to veer into oncoming traffic (US roads) in emergency situations.
pr0n sites, advantage lefty! You're using the mouse with your right hand and your left hand is free for more important things
In a related note, I HOPE that lefties wipe with their right hand...
Touchscreen Clio (Score:2)
Re:Hummm... (Score:1)
Seiko Smartpad? (Score:2)
Re:Big PDA (Score:1)
ok, so this [apple.com] is a little wider than you are thinking, but with handwriting recognition [zdnet.com] supposedly being readied for mac os x, the rumour is that the powerbook will get a touch sensitive screen and the ability to unhinge its keyboard (have to move the proc up though)
A return to the original ThinkPad (Score:1)
Nice to see, but rather a shame there's no sign of the PenPoint OS---did Taiwan's MITI ever do anything with that when they bought it?
--
Lettering Art in Modern Use
Similar to the Cross Crosspad (Score:2)
sPh
Calculations? (Score:5)
Imagine writing down your integral and have it calculated by mathematica...
oh well.
Oh no! (Score:2)
You got your notepad in my laptop!
Seriously, how useful is this? Pen entry is good on a small device where adding a keyboard would be impossible. But the device is the size of a laptop already (bigger, because they added a notepad). What does the pen entry add, really? It sure ain't speed or accuracy.
The only possible consumer is people who can't type. And even they can only get data into the device. What am I going to do to perform a search or print a report? Write all the specs with pen on paper to get it into the laptop? Why not just hire an assistant that knows how to work a laptop and write notes to him/her--it's the same effect, plus you can have sex on business trips.
--
MailOne [openone.com]
How modular is it? (Score:1)
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Too bad... (Score:1)
If only IBM could transform it into a Linux system.
Ooh... The Internet is on computers now... Good for it.
--Homer Simpson
Transition Vehicle (Score:4)
The pad is the key component because you can always drop back and scribble if your windows crashes, giving a sense of security. Plus, it's in a nifty package, so you don't have to fumble a laptop AND a pad of paper.
Plust the flexibility of using just the touch screen is what I've been longing for. I used PenWindows and a backlit Wacom pad back in 93 and fell in love with it, then it died a horrible costly death. Hopefully it will be reborn soon by devices like this.
For me, there isn't a program fast enough yet that I can use to go from mind to screen. Even visio isn't fast enough... Sometimes I even drop into notepad or paint, but they still can't compete with pen/paper for rapid thought.
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Pad and screen have opposite orientations (Score:2)
The article left me with several questions:
- Do you have to write with special characters, or will it recognize my native printing?
- Does the pad fold all the way around for when you're not using the computer?
- If so, wouldn't writing on the pad mash the keys against the table?
Re:Left Handed (Score:2)
I find it pathetic that the people who design products such as this cannot get past arranging things to be universal when it comes to handedness. Usually, its not that hard - I guess they just don't want to spend the extra few minutes and a few extra bucks to get the design functionality.
On the other hand (no pun intended) - at least IBM is offering a left handed model. We could be snubbed altogether.
Weights a TON! (Score:1)
Cool for forms and routine task logs! (Score:3)
I've been waiting for something like this. Nice work, IBM!
Re:This SOUNDS great... but in reality... (Score:2)
To me, using ANY alphabet to WRITE seems stupid for text input. I can type at more than twice my writing speed, and I enjoy it more. The only things I want paper for are drawing diagrams for something. This is easliy done with a $80 Wacom drawing tablet that attached to the USB port.
The main advantage of a system like this is because of the stigma people place on keyboard inside meeting, etc. Writing on a pad is not as much of a distraction for those attending. I say screw the distraction and use my Visor with a Stowaway keyboard for syncing when I get back to my Thinkpad.
I am curious how it will do in the marketplace, it seems slightly better than a toy to me.
Re:I've already been doing this... (Score:1)
Byzandula
This article's title (Score:1)
But actually this could spur some interesting hacks... command line scripting with pen and paper? Of course it's hard to clear the screen when you've been badmouthing the boss, if it's right there on paper.
Re:This sounds great... (Score:1)
Nice, but... (Score:1)
A notebook with a touchscreen is enough, I'd say (and you could sill leave off the keyboard and mouse... damn, that would be a pretty cool! Star Trek Padds, anyone?).
Handwriting recognition is neat though. The Newton MessagePad, when correctly set up, will pick up around 95% of what I write (provided I'm not messy
Re:Calculations? (Score:1)
I have the same problem, but I like to do many of my calculation against a blackboard as well. Though that should be solvable, say using chalk with a uranium powder that can be picked up by a censor in the room (right though your body!)
I can say no more - must call up USPO right away!
Electronic Paper! (Score:1)
A while ago they started a project at MIT for . They store a whole bunch of little balls in the paper that are half white and half black, and rotated to display the correct color. The electronics to control the balls were printed on the paper itself, and the resolution was pretty high (I think they were shooting for laser quality, and it wasn't too far off). It was static, so required no power once set. They wanted to use it to have books that could function (and in fact be) normal books that you could read, but the pages themselves could be rewritten at the push of a button. [mit.edu]
I've always wanted someone to make this idea into a PDA. Imagine a single clipboard with a paper-like front that sits there with a page of text on it. Then you could push a button and a new page of text appears, indistinguishable from a laser printed (or typeset) page. Then you use the stylus to make notes in the corner, where the small PDA chips embedded in the clip part track your movements and create the lines under your pen simulating writing and drawing. Then you push another button and you can write a quick email and send it off.
If you could actually make this sort of appliance, (which shouldn't be hard with MIT's e-paper and a small embeded chip that only consumes power when you're actively doing something) you could have an essentially always on electronic writting / display tablet. With the ability to read and write like a normal piece of paper, but the power of a computer's ability to store and display hundreds of pages of text, you could replace school textbooks, novels, hostpital charts, almost anything you can think of. And with a display and chip that only use power when active (ie. refreshing with a new page or drawing with the stylus), you should be able to go days / weeks on a single battery. It could become the single most useful PDA-like device.
The possibilities are just too much. But I've never heard of anything like it, and I'm curious if anyone's ever had this occur to them too. With news of the new light-interference static display technology, you could have a full color pad too. Think about it a bit, and about how many normal uses it could serve, and it gets more exciting. Anyone else see this?
Just curious, as always. Feedback, please!
James
Re:Electronic Paper! (Score:1)
Damn Preview Button. [slashdot.org]
why isn't the paper pad wireless? dohhhh... (Score:1)
Re:The Simpsons bit.. (Score:1)
I blame the 14-inch black-and-white Magnetbox with the incessant ghosting for that error.
this will replace handhelds? (Score:1)
i have a palmV.. and i dont know what i would do without it.. well at least until i scrape up some money for an ipaq. these notepads look 31337 enought.. but still fairly large. if i was going to get something with a keyboard, and was willing to spend money, i would just get a sony vaio. theyre prettier and more useful.
the perfect world is a world without lag. a world without lag is a world without people
Oh great, is this going to be another Newton? (Score:1)
Actually this can be both faster and more accurate (Score:2)
I would welcome this, as it would make it possible to create a more professional report afterwards, without typing things twice.
Re:Yeah, but I type much faster than I write (Score:3)
Oh wait, that's because when I type I'm writing perl....
Transceivers? (Score:1)
I can understand the receive part, but what does it transmit back to the pad? Perhaps an electrical shock if you write a dirty word?