New Thinkpad To Combine Pen/Paper

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."

Comments

Slashdot & Pen Computers

[SEWilco]

A recent Ask Slashdot about Electronic Class Notebook discussed a paperless pen computer. The Crosspad was also mentioned there several times.

Pretty cool tech...

[ocelotbob]

This seems like a great idea, usable as a computer in those situations where a full computer just doesn't "feel" right. When I'm taking notes, jotting down a poem, etc, I usually hate to type, rather, I like to scrawl my scribblings on a pad of paper. Don't ask me why, it just feels better to get those emotions down on ground up trees. However, since one can't send a sheet of paper to someone across the country nearly as fast as you can send an email, so I end up having to type it out anyways. This seems like it'll get rid of most of the redundancy of having to put down an idea twice just to get people to be able to read it.

Re:Pretty cool tech...

[FallLine]

heh, i'm the other way around. I simply hate handwriting. Whenever I do it I spend far more time trying to write somewhat legibly then I do producing quality work. Of course, I started doing most of papers on computer in 4th grade. The problem is that I can't generally afford to lug a computer (just for notes) into class and meetings. Although I doubt this thing in the solution for me, it'll be nice when the form factor and price of these laptops improves, not to mention their acceptance.

Calculations?

[san]

The only thing i use pen and paper for still is for calculations; having a recognition program for that to mathml/latex/mathematica would be really useful..

Imagine writing down your integral and have it calculated by mathematica...

oh well.

Transition Vehicle

[Sebastopol]

This really isn't intended for the technophile, it is a transition vehicle that enables three different technologies: keyboard, pad and touchscreen, ultimately weaning luddites from their fear of PCs/PDAs. Perhaps this is the logical transition point between laptop and PDA (subnotebooks are a failure IMHO).

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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Cool for forms and routine task logs!

[NuclearArchaeologist]

This is great for forms and checklists. A form can be printed that lies over the pad. As it's filled in, the fields are put in the appropriate database. When the task is done, both a traditional paper document and a database exist. The paper can easily be inspected and approved then filed for as long as needed by other inspectors. The electronic copy can be researched easily by those who need to know what happened.

I've been waiting for something like this. Nice work, IBM!

Re:Yeah, but I type much faster than I write

[DeadSea]

Thats funny. My handwriting is much more legible than my typing.

Oh wait, that's because when I type I'm writing perl....