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The
Write Stuff
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Bill Gates has been waxing
lyrical about a device called the Tablet PC for so many
years that it’s become a running joke in the tech
press. Finally last month, at the computer industry’s
big annual Comdex trade show |
in Las Vegas, the famous Tablet
became more that just talk. Nine major manufacturers-including
Toshiba, NEC and Compaq-unveiled Tablet PCs that they’re
about to bring to market. Each will sell for roughly the
price of a laptop, and all will run Windows XP Tablet
PC edition and a handwriting program called Journal. Microsoft
promises both program will be finished by the second half
of 2002.
Eager to get a feel for what these new machines can do,
I took a Tablet PC-made by Acer and running Journal-out
for a test-drive. The hardware is pretty slick. It starts
off looking like a laptop, but then you unhook part of
the screen, swing it around 180o and push it down. Press
a button to go from landscape to portrait view, and presto!
Instant Tablet. The whole thing is about the size of a
thick legal pad, weighs under 1.3kg and sits comfortably
on your thigh. It doesn’t get hot, and you can rest
your wrist and arm on the screen without messing up your
work. That’s because the stylus that operates the
thing works by constantly beaming low-frequency radio
signals to the computer, telling where it is. That way,
Windows knows where you want the cursor to be even before
you touch the screen. Once you put pen to virtual paper,
a pressure sensor starts the flow of digital ink. Journal
takes note of the pen’s position 133 times a second,
so the line looks very smooth.
There are still a few bugs. When you write in Journal,
the cursor drags ever so slightly behind the pen, so if
you scribble too fast, your letters sometimes appear a
second after you make the mark. In Microsoft’s defense,
this was an early version of the software. No one will
accept handwriting software unless it feels just like
handwriting, but Microsoft knows that and figures it has
seven months to get it right.
I hope it does, because you can do a lot of net things
with Journal notes. Searching is easy: jot down the word
you’re looking for, and Journal instantly offers
a list of matching documents. Converting handwriting to
text is surprisingly accurate, and when Journal doesn’t
recognize a word, it gives you drop-down menus of possible
replacements. You can handwrite replies to e-mail or draw
diagrams in instant messages. You can turn sentences into
to-do items in Microsoft Word. No doubt this is all part
of Gates’ plan to take over the world. That may not
please the antitrust lawyers, but at least it isn’t
a joke anymore.
By C. Taylor |
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No
Bulges!
I
love winter. It means I
get to wear a coat. This love isn’t about fashion
or warmth. It’s about carrying capacity. As it
is now, I spend summers looking as if I suffer from
a gross deformity of the thighs, my mobile phone an
unsightly lump in one trouser pocket and my personal
digital assistant a suspicious bulge in the other.
But another, svelter option may be coming, as efforts
by electronics companies to cross-pollinate phones
and digital organizers finally make headway. Coming
to Asia are multifunction mobiles that are small,
stylish and, best of all, they run the Palm operating
system familiar to most people using handheld computers.
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to most people using handheld
computers.
A prime example of the new “smart phone” breed
is the Treo 180 communicator. Produced by Handspring,
the U.S. Company that also makes the Visor line of digital
organizers, the Treo seamlessly combines a mobile phone,
PDA, wireless e-mail, short messaging (SMS) and Web surfing
into one 160-g package. Surprisingly, it doesn’t
look like the demon spawn of a phone and shoe. The gunmetal
blue Treo appears to be a big-screen handset. But beneath
a clamshell protective cover lies a Qwerty keyboard for
surfing, pecking out electronic messages and managing
personal data (Handspring also offers a keyboard-less
model that, like Palm organizers, relies on touch-screen
and stylus for character input).
Thanks to the Palm operating system, the Treo handles
scheduling, contact lists and personal notes with the
alacrity of your trusty pocket computer. It comes with
16MB of memory, so it can store and run several of the
12,000-plus software programs and games available for
the Palm platform. The Treo syncs readily with computers
via standard USB connections. You can carry your complete
contact list, either Microsoft Outlook or Palm Desktop
address books, wherever you go.
As an Internet access device, the Treo works well enough,
given the current slow networks. The monochrome screen
isn’t vivid, but Treo’s display will improve
when a colour screen version becomes available in late
summer. Where the device really shines is as a phone.
All the normal functions such as caller ID and the ability
to automatically capture incoming numbers are there. The
Treo also solves a common mobile phone irritant. You can
look up a number during a call, a function absent from
conventional mobiles. Dialing is a snap. Just type in
the first few letters of a name, up pops the number from
your contact list, tap “Enter.” Based on the
dual-band GSM standard, the Treo works region wide except
in Japan. I wish it had an MP3 player. But other clever
features, including a built-in speaker phone and an on-off
button for the incoming call alert, make the Treo easy
to lust after. The reason not to: its battery life can’t
match standard mobile phones. With heavy usage, daily
charging is needed. |
| And the Treo
costs about $500, a lot for a handset. Kyocera, Sony and
Samsung all have Palm-based phone/organizer combos on
or about to hit the market. Here’s hoping competition
drives down the price. I’d love to free some pocket
space. |
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