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There is one problem with prepared slides: They are canned! They are not exactly a dynamic medium of communication. While the chalkboard still is.

I think if I were a professor, I'd get myself a one or a couple of Cintiqs, and project each one on a different screen. Just like chalkboards. But with the ability to use prepared material too, and even quickly switch to a website or just project some code while I write it, if needed.

The problem is, that education is crappy, because the money all goes to "terrorist" ghosts, pointless wars, by/and "failing" banks who deliberately put the country into debt, to control it.
It's a bit like the original Stargate movie: We have the right to have just enough intelligence to be good servants.

Wacom has a few cheap low end tablets that are not marketed as graphics-tools and if you want to go really cheap there's always the tablets made by Trust.
But if you are going to use a tablet to make your notes you will probably find that it is easier, faster and result in higher quality to use a good pen, a blank (no lines or grid) paper and then scan it. That also has the benefit that you don't have to set up your computer during lecture.

I foolishly tried once to that once, with LyX - pretty cool concept, but when you really need to write a whole bunch of equations in succession, then you end up putting more effort on getting it right on your computer than on actually paying attention to the lectures. Don't believe it? Try using LyX to jot down long-ass operational semantics formulas while trying to pay attention to what the instructor is saying.

Best thing is to jot them down on paper for later digitizing. Or use a Baboo Pen in conjunction to your laptop (I wish I had that kind of technology that cheap when I was in school.) Actually I might end up Xmas-present myself with one of those.

Another problem with this system is that he's tied the input device to the Software, those global and local bars are lame. The menu controls should be in the OS and should be independent from the input device.

Also, his con10uum idea is lame, that kind of system is already being used in coverflow and it's fine for looking through a few albums, but not for managing my windows.

Wait, wait, I'm having a brain storm, you know that thumbnail view he showed if you zoom out, we could take a thumbnail view like that and show it all the time. We could put it at the bottom of the screen. If you hover over the thumbnail it gives you a preview of the window, and if you click on the thumbnail that window pops up. Amazing idea huh

Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that there are products similar to this that already exist and are compatible with existing systems.

You were looking for these? Multi-touch touchpads from Wacom, and cheap.
http://www.wacom.com/bamboo/

These Wacom tablets have screens now, it would be useful to have something similar in a laptop. Even better would be to have one on the outside of the laptop as well.

Received this in my mailbox. It's just a peripheral but it is a demonstration of how the right tool can make the learning process easier. Part of the success of the California project will be matching the right tool with the right problem.

How about for those of us with arthritis and bursitis, which can make clicking a button a massive pain where one could just touch the screen and be on their way?

The post I was replying to was saying that there was no on-screen keyboard - the only one of your examples which is going to want an on-screen keyboard is the one where you were dumb enough to spill coke on your keyboard.

No, for some it may be easier to touch a "key" on screen than to type on a keyboard. So in this GP was right. Personally I wouldn't want an onscreen keyboard but I can see where it would be preferable for some people. I worked with a quadriplegic who typed with a pen, pencil, or straw in his mouth. A touch screen he could type on would have been better for him.

Now what I would like is a Wacom Cintiq, which I saw on the Ubuntu site is supported.

Falcon

The Wacom Cintiq monitor/tablet connected as a secondary display gets you pretty close to that... if you're willing to spend the cash. It doesn't have complex haptic feedback and requires a stylus, but it's a step in the right direction.

As an artist myself I've often wanted to draw on the computer too. I've never suceeded.

It sounds as if something like Wacom's Cintiq display tablets would be more useful to you, since you would be using the stylus to draw directly on the display and have the stroke appear to be coming from the point of the stylus.

Touch-screens are generally not that useful for general computing, outside of graphic design work (such as with the Wacom Cintiq drawing screens: http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm ).

I'd much rather have a "laptop" that had no screen at all, and a 1200x1600 head-mounted display instead. Less weight, less power, and easier to use in more situations. ~

Obviously this is a figment of my imagination, then.

Nah. It's just an example demonstrating I was wrong ;-).

Though I imagine there are some technical (mechanical durability) and pricing difficulties with putting that on the laptop displayed. It'd need to be pretty durable to take normal laptop display abuse without fracturing if it's glass. And it would have to be hinged with a... rotating hinge (I'm sure those have a name, since there are a few laptops with them?) so that the display can be turned and rotated to cover the keyboard for serious tablet-style drawing. And even then, if you need to both draw and use the keyboard, it might be inconvenient.

But your point stands, it could be done that way too, and at least for some users it would be much better too.

Obviously this is a figment of my imagination, then.

But seriously, the answer is that it depends on the technology used. The pressure-sensitive screens (as on most PDAs) obviously wouldn't be all that durable, but some technologies (such as the Wacom one) allow the screen to be protected by a glass sheet. Scratching is not a problem because the tip of the stylus is made out of a softer material, so you replace the stylus tip when it wears out instead of replacing the screen.

Incidentally, I own a Thinkpad X60 Tablet that's about a year and a half old now, and wear has not been a problem. And although it does get fingerprints, those aren't a problem either.

So where would you put the Wacom on this laptop...

Oh I don't know, on the screen, maybe? You know, like a normal Tablet PC, which is exactly what this is except that Tablet PCs have bigger digitizers and work better because the strokes appear where the user actually drew them.

I mean really, what kind of idiot would want this?! It's like getting a really tiny Intuos when you could have had a nice big Cintiq for less!

So where would you put the Wacom on this laptop...

Oh I don't know, on the screen, maybe? You know, like a normal Tablet PC, which is exactly what this is except that Tablet PCs have bigger digitizers and work better because the strokes appear where the user actually drew them.

I mean really, what kind of idiot would want this?! It's like getting a really tiny Intuos when you could have had a nice big Cintiq for less!

Not its intended use, but I've found this to be very good for Diablo II. However, it appears my $80 model is no longer made, and they've created or renamed their consumer line here

Not its intended use, but I've found this to be very good for Diablo II. However, it appears my $80 model is no longer made, and they've created or renamed their consumer line here

As for touch, what exactly do you mean by "touch" so that I can find examples that you will find pertinent? As for screens, see Cintiq, or is that what you claim was introduced only last year? As for touch and screens in the same unit, does the Nintendo DS count, or does the existence of DSOrganize and SvSIP make the DS fall under your "PDAs/smartphones" exclusion?

Another question: What would need a touch screen make easier to do on a desktop PC? Or is the answer "nothing", and is your point that the answer is "nothing"?

WillAdams wrote "I'm definitely getting a Wacom Cintiq 12WX for my next machine at home (and a 20WX at work) --- http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm [wacom.com] --- but I need a replacement for the Fujitsu Stylistic which replaced my Newton (which replaced my NCR-3125)." I wouldn't touch the Cintiq 12WX at the moment. The backlight power supply has an RF problem and the damn tablet jitters like crazy. 10 minutes with the Cintiq and you'll feel like you had 20 cups of coffee. Wait 6 months for Wacom to fix the problem. They won't even let you return the defective ones without paying a restock fee!

When Jobs killed the Newton, he promised that having those engineers available for other products would create innovative and break-through portable computing devices --- all I've seen are iPods, admittedly nice (but traditional form-factor clamshell) laptops and the iPhone. From:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/16-02/ff_iphone?currentPage=2

>Apple's hardware engineers had spent about a year working on touchscreen technology for a tablet PC

Where is it?

I'd buy an iPhone today if only it allowed one to use a stylus for handwriting recognition and allowed one to draw and annotate documents, but would prefer something a bit larger, but not quite so large as the Axiotron ModBook, http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook and ideally it would have a nice docking station option and media-oriented features allowing it to work as a remote control, portable music player while hidden away in a laptop bag, ebook reader &c.

I'm definitely getting a Wacom Cintiq 12WX for my next machine at home (and a 20WX at work) --- http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm --- but I need a replacement for the Fujitsu Stylistic which replaced my Newton (which replaced my NCR-3125).

William

Then Wacom came out with the Cintiq http://www.wacom.com/pendisplays/index.cfm but to my knowledge they don't work either.

I read that without a d in the middle word of that URL and then started thinking that penis play would be a pretty neat game control mechanism, but discriminating against the girl gamer.

I have been dreaming of getting perfect head shots while using a tablet for years, but the games don't understand the input of a tablet and you typically end up lookng at the sky spinning in circles or looking at your feet doing the same. Then Wacom came out with the Cintiq http://www.wacom.com/pendisplays/index.cfm but to my knowledge they don't work either. This would be similar to Metroid Prime Hunters for the DS but you could be doing it with your other hand on the keyboard.

The Cinteq http://www.wacom.com/ has all that you're asking for (though not cheap) in a large format size, the 21UX. It is fully supported by OSX and from having worked with Wacom in the past on Windows/Photoshop/Painter, their sensitivity support is good enough for my illustration graduate girlfriend. I guess that means its more than functional.

And... ummm.. Where exactly is the appeal in the TabletPC?

They're loads cheaper than a Cintiq. And more portable.

As an artist, I thought a tablet PC would be awesome. However, the one I tried was a big letdown in terms of application support - Adobe apps are unuseable in portrait mode. :/

not if you use a Wacom tablet http://www.wacom.com/index2.cfm

Long, long ago I tried a trackball at my friend's house, and decided I absolutely must have one. That was a good couple of years, til I switched back to a mouse permanently, and you better believe I never looked back. After experiencing both sides of the fence, using a mouse is far more intuitive and precise for many activities on a PC.

When I got my first laptop I got both a mouth and a trackball. After a few weeks I retired the trackball as it was bothered me too much. The only thing worse was the stick stuck in the keyboard. When I get a new Macbook Pro I may try again but I'd really love to get a Wacom tablet. If only I could afford the Cintiq.

I've never understood the trackball crowd (and I tried one for awhile). Simply put: the way our thumbs work is very sub-optimal for pointing.

I stopped reading after the first paragraph. A tablet? Orders of magnitude more expensive? What?

You put the screen flat on the desk like a placemat. If you like, you can put a second display in the traditional place. Same idea as Wacom's Cintiq Tablet

http://wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm

Or, you detect the hand in front of the screen, so the user can perform gestures without actually touching. Wacom's tablets detect the pen when they're not touching the tablets, so you can do gestures like kick your elbow back and drive the cursor into the corner and trigger Exposé. Apparently this can be done with the bare hand also, already been solved.

Also consider how bad the mouse and keyboard are in this regard, all the carpal and the twisted wrists and bad posture. People are already getting wrecked by stuff. If fingers are more natural people may use them more intuitively and with natural movements.

I've been using an Art Tablet for many years, having a real-world spacial relationship with the items on the screen is completely addictive, I'm not at all surprised that people like their iPhones. The mouse feels like pushing an egg around with a spoon, it is completely abysmal, very hard to do it now that I'm used to every pixel of the display always being in the same place under my fingertips. I don't even have a mouse hooked to this computer.

Now that our UI's have true 3D and physics it is only a matter of time until we all get our hands in there.

I think it will stun the nerd mind how fast the keyboard is abandoned also, first chance. If you are a coder or a writer you love the keys like they are a piano, but 95% of computer users would toss it in a blink. Gone. The only thing most people hate more than typing is writing with a pen or stylus. If you try and use a stylus for 8 hours a day you will be at the doctor before the week is done (hello Tablet PC's not going mainstream). I do it but I'm working Photoshop all day and I have a selection of band-aids and tape and other methods to repair my hands some but even so I am at the doctor once a year at least.

The only thing that's coming to replace the mouse is gestures. Either in front of or on the display.

There is a new framework in iPhone called CoreSurface. Not hard to imagine it coming to the Mac.

I was at the Apple Store in SF the other day and they had a giant iPhone in the window which had an HD iMac inside it, showing off the iPhone features as a movie, acting like a giant iPhone. That may be the rumored touch screen aluminum iMac so maybe this is all speculation. Maybe they'll wait a year or two. Then again the Mac line is due to be refreshed, we had the Intel Macs looking just like the previous generation, it's time for an all-new line with touch screens in my opinion.

As for the multi-touch track pads, I heard the track pads in Macs have been multi-touch for some time now. Maybe that is true of other PC's also. In the past you could only touch them with one finger and putting a second finger on there was unpredictable.

I noticed that in the iPhone you have a new OS X framework called "CoreSurface". It's not a huge stretch to think that might show up on the Mac.

I imagine for artists and photographers this sort of thing would be amazing too; I played around a bit with the Wacom Cintiq at an Adobe conference recently using Photoshop and it was just incredible. Way too expensive but a hundred times better than using a Wacom tablet. So I'm all for any step in the direction of a MacTablet or touchscreen monitor. I just wish I could order now it instead of the MacBook Pro I just ordered....

I have a graphire xl (and a MX1000) and I used to use a Microwiter AgendA so I can recommend this. I wish they did a wired version too for desktop use. I like some of the Logitech mice as the slope fits very well with a rest position for my hands - they naturally seem to fall at about 45 degress, not perpendicular to the desk. For me a VM would be as much of a twist as a normal, but in the opposite direction, which is probably why I like the tablet so much.

The Wacom Cintiq is a 2.5 thousand dollar monitor with built-in pen input. It's far, far more expensive than just a monitor or just a pen input. But the combination of the two raises productivity and art quality to such a degree that it is worth buying for your employees. People time is thankfully still far more expensive than computer time.

If this ridiculously expensive keyboard makes a 50k dollar a year employee just 2% faster, it will have paid for itself in the first year. They'll need to do a lot of application switching to justify that price, but it is definitely possible. And maybe it functions best in a kiosk situation, or with your least-well trained employees, or what have you. Maybe for your corporate training applications?

It seems like there should be a perfect niche out there for the optimus to fill. So long as they don't flood every circuit city across the world with them, they should be poised to take over that niche.

High-end digital graphics artists have been using stuff like this for years already. For example: http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm (just the first one I could find on google).

Wich is why Wacom has BOTH mice and pens for most of their Digitizers now!
http://www.wacom.com/graphire/index.cfm
I have one of those... And it is GREAT! I can use a mouse for most apps, and when I want to work in a graphic app, I grab the pen and now it acts as a Digitizer! Best of all the mouse and pen DO NOT NEED Batteries! The digitizer powers the mouse and pen Wirelessly!

The other issue I have with this fancy LCD Touch product (Aside for everything else that was mentioned by others)... Is that it will NOT work with my 17" screen! It is just too large.

I'm about as serious as they come in regards to Photoshop and completely disagree with you. I use a Cintiq (Wacom) daily which is a LCD screen controlled by a stylus. And sketching on screen with a stylus is unequivocally superior to sketching with a mouse (and on a separate tablet IMHO). It is simply natural to look at what your drawing.

In regards to TFA, pressure sensitivity is the key aspect in art/design applications. I saw resolution mentioned, but nothing on pressure sensitivity. If this device has no, or little pressure sensitivity it will certainly remain a non-artisan tool for the majority of users. Personally, I would not be interested in this product because most laptop screens are 'soft' and susceptible to damage, and the keyboard is in the way.

If nobody wanted to draw on an LCD, why would Wacom sell Cintiqs? Here's a guy who went through the trouble of building his own "Cintiq" from an LCD and tablet.

Same price, actually, as the smallest Wacom Graphire.

Dang! I remember Deluxe Paint. I used to use Deluxe Paint to upgrade 4 bit game graphics to 8 bit graphics back in the day for a gaming company. I also used Deluxe Paint on my Amiga to make a product called Digital Collage.

I have to agree with both the parent AND your comment. Although it is true that the de-emphasis on drawing by curriculum can be at fault (and the influence still of the "anything goes" style of rendering introduced by abstract expressionism), I began updating my portfolio in a new direction a few months ago and discovered to my horror that I had lost many of my basic skills. Oh, I remembered, but my hand didn't. So I've started from scratch (as part of the flickr community here.) I'm picking up speed to be sure, but all that photoshop work I did over the past several years took me away from the desk and adversely affected my skills.

This isn't rocket science, though. If you don't use it, you lose it. I think bringing awareness to the problem is a good thing, however. If it was such an obvious conclusion as some of the cheekier posters contend, why would so many artists be experiencing this problem? We'll just have to work harder to make time for the pencil and paper (Sorry, but graphic tablets just aren't there yet...too much lag and who can afford a Cintiq?)

Why not buy a third-party tablet? Like my sister? And my mother? And my neighbor's friend's father's friend's son? Wacom makes good ones.

-:sigma.SB

So they took a computer with a big Cintiq and mounted it in an ugly-ass coffee table. Big deal. When did HP become casemodders? It doesn't even allow multi-user input, like one of these.

Coffee tables are for setting coffee, books, and maybe a board game on. You're not going to want to spend any significant amount of time hunched over one, even if it's for fun multi-user stuff. A normal-height table would be a lot better.

This goes along the lines of what you said. We'll only see 3D desktops when the peripherals for such software goes mainstream. While people are still using their regular mice or wacoms, demand or a need for standard 2D desktops and software will be high. Get the hardware out there and known to people, and eventually developers will start coding for such hardware.

The _Wacom_ 'stuff' is the same technology in many if not all tablet pc as the technology as the _Wacom_ graphics tablet digitizers. So in fact my shiny Wacom Graphire 3 Bluetooth graphics tablet has 512 pressure levels, twice as many as the tablet pc hardware http://www.wacom.com/tabletpc/comparison.cfm
It's $250 for the graphire 3 bluetooth... $200 for a wired one... and that's a 6x8inch active area... a similar size to a 12" laptop screen.

I'm a user of an IBM x40 (which is extremely similar to the x41) with my graphics tablet and OneNote (and some alternatives as well).
If I were to own a mac my tablet would work perfectly with that. In addition to that OSX apparently has handwriting recognition built in, it's called InkWell IIRC.

The graphics tablets are just as good if not better than the tablet pc digitizers (depending on models). It doesn't cost 5k for a mac solution. The only technological advantage that the tablet pc digitizer has is that it has a 120Hz refresh rate as opposed to graphics tablets which are limited to the 40Hz of windows mouse drivers.

As an aside the IBM x40 (and presumable same for the x41) is a fantastic laptop. Insanely light and portable, with simply amazing battery life. I can get 8 hours when I'm thrifty, and still about 6 hours with bluetooth and/or wifi.

Good idea. Someone's already beaten you to it, however =)
Wacom (among others) use this technology for their sketch styluses (stylii?) and wireless mouses that only work when in close proximity to the surface of the graphics tablet...

There's been a *lot* of reasearch into new interface devices. One of the problems is that they universally suck, at least in the general case. Google for haptics if you're interested. The mouse is actually astonishingly powerful and flexible, and unless you can point to specific issues with it, complaints about it sound like people whining that there's been no serious research in new light switches.

As for what you want... it's already here. You can get a Wacom tablet with a screen on it. http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index.cfm

It is unlikely a tablet PC screen will meet your artistic needs in the near future. Wacom produces screens for tablet PCs. You can see the specs are unimpressive even when compared to a generic tablet. However, take a look at their Cintiq line. /pixar uses them

It is unlikely a tablet PC screen will meet your artistic needs in the near future. Wacom produces screens for tablet PCs. You can see the specs are unimpressive even when compared to a generic tablet. However, take a look at their Cintiq line. /pixar uses them

Mods, before you go modding down, note the mouse towards the bottom of the page. Also note that it is tracked by the pad, not by an LED, laser, or ball.

Tablets and mice from Wacom have used battery-less radio tech for years. They are expensive though. (But very very good.) Hopefully this new mouse will eventually force Wacom to lower their prices a bit.

I imagine that is referring to an interface to Inkwell. Inkwell is primarily useful for users of Wacom tablets. You know, those things that let you draw with a pen? Well, Inkwell will let you use it for handwriting recognition and as a mouse as well. Inkwall has existed in OS X since Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2). To sum it all up, this is nothing new and is no golden arrow pointing towards the amazing future of Apple tablets. Please be careful not to throw misguided bread crumbs out that the Mac rumor sites will try to build nests out of.

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