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New Tablet PCs With A Linux Option
Oliver Wendell Jones writes "InfoWorld is running an article about a new kind of inexpensive (starting under $800) tablet PC that runs your choice of Windows 2000, Windows XP or the Lindows distro of Linux. The PC is called the DocuNote and features an 8.4" touch screen with digital camera and microphone. The PCs are being created by a company called StepUp, which is formed of a lot of people from the old eMachines organization. DocuNotes are scheduled to start shipping in mid-December."
A GROUP OF PC industry veterans Tuesday took the cloak off a new company called StepUp Computing, and revealed its first product -- a low-cost, pen-based tablet computer that can run Windows 2000, Windows XP, and coming soon, a version of the Linux operating system from Lindows.com.
The cofounder of budget PC maker eMachines and several former executives of that company are behind the new venture. It's goal is to offer affordable desktop and mobile computing products that serve small and mid-size business users in targeted specialty and vertical markets, it said.
StepUp Computing's first product to market will be a tablet computer called the DocuNote, which will cost as little as $799 depending on the software it ships with, the company said. While it is being released in concert with a host of tablet devices from vendors such as Acer and Hewlett-Packard, it does not run Microsoft's new Windows XP Professional Tablet PC operating system, and lacks some of the advanced features that are available with those devices, according to Microsoft.
It also doesn't share the same price tag. Tablet devices running Microsoft's new operating system cost as much as $2,500.
The DocuNote weighs 2.5 pounds with its battery pack, and measures about 10 inches by 8 inches by 1-inch thick. It features an 8.4-inch touch-screen display and a built-in color digital camera and microphone that are designed for video conferencing, the company said. It features a 667MHz Crusoe TM5600 processor from Transmeta Corp., 256MB of memory and a 20GB hard drive. It also has a slot for a wireless network card.
Unlike the new class of Tablet PCs, the device from StepUp Computing can be navigated by touching the display with any object, such as a stylus pen or your finger. It does, however, share capabilities, such as inking and handwriting recognition, with the more expensive machines.
Young Song, president and chief executive officer at StepUp Computing, was a co-founder of eMachines. Other executives at the Fullerton, Calif.-based start-up include the former director of finance and senior director of corporate communications at eMachines.
StepUp Computing is practicing a similar philosophy to that of eMachines with its strategy of keeping hardware costs at the low-end of the market. The devices are manufactured in Seoul by Garnet Systems, and will only be available through select VARs (value-added resellers) and systems integrators, who will be responsible for setting up and configuring the devices for customers.
StepUp Computing is now accepting orders for the DocuNote through the channel with plans to begin shipping units in mid-December. In early 2003, the company will begin selling DocuNote devices running LindowsOS 3.0, it said.
I wonder if Lindows handwriting recognition software will be GPL'ed. Even if it isn't, perhaps it would be usable on other flavors of Linux?
AFAIK there is no high-powered handwriting recognition software readily available for linux. Is that so?
Wah!
Seriously, linux w/ a touchscreen?? How useful is that?!
yeah true... it's not like any of those Ipaq users or zaurus users can do anything with linux and a touchscreen.
ok, enough of me being silly... I can give you thousands of things you can do with linux + a touchscreen.
Internet surfing/ media tablet.
Tabulate data from people.
access medical records and display them along with showing the CAT or MRI animations.
Insurance data entry..
Basically anything you can do with a tablet pc you can do with linux+tablet pc... but faster, more secure and with greater stability.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I hate to reveal my Mac OS affiliation here in Linux heaven -- but does anyone know of any Apple plans on this front? Tablets have interested me for a really long time, so what if laptops are probably better for most things? ;-)
This is a disadvantage of a single-source hardware platform. Or not: oddly enough Apple has been an innovator there many times over -- SCSI, USB, Firewire, flat-panel iMac, dropping-the-floppy, Newton (oops), Superdrive and so on (please don't bother to correct the ones I got wrong) -- not to say these were all earthshaking, but you'd expect the innovation to come from the huge Wintel market (or not I now have learned, given the slender margins, 3rd-party hardware headaches, and pressure for cloning over novelty).
At this stage Linux doesn't have anything even close to that. Of course it would be fun to hack a Tablet PC but not much productivity could be expected.
And here an article about Tablet PC software.
Operating system aside, the form factor _is_ similar. I have my 2k here with me now. The Stepup's will be 8x10, 2.5 pounds. It's actually quite a good size- it'll be obvious if you're carrying it around, but should fit in the crook of the arm nicely. And the price is good, too - $800 is the price of a low-end laptop, and I think this could be more useful. Add a wifi card and VNC, and all of a sudden you have the web pad that MS goes on about, but take it on the road as a separate machine. Could work.
Ditto what others have said - what kind of HWR will this thing have that'll run on Linux?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Why not? Perhaps some of the features in Lindows are suitable for a tablet where other linux distributions wouldn't cut it, not to mention that Lindows is much more user friendly than the average linux distribution.
Ok, this may be slightly off-topic, and it may be a stupid question, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who is wondering -
What's with Lindows everywhere? First they get distribution with Wal-Mart PCs, and now these tablet PCs which look to me like they could be a serious competitor to the $2500 alternatives. Does anyone know anything about the company? Are they a "good" company as far as their open-source work? Are they looking to make any sort of corporate push? And on the technical side, I've never messed with Lindows myself. Is it similar to RedHat, or Debian, or what? Is it stable? Could anyone with experience with Lindows share their opinions and thoughts?
Thanks
I mean really - why does everyone just suddenly believe these things have a future? I don't mean they would not, but why now?
Here's a question:
I'm a DJ, and I've been using a laptop to suppliment vinyl for doing weddings, requests, etc. Is there a linux app for graphically mixing mp3s together? This would be the killer app for me to switch off of Windows for personal use. A tablet would look much more professional mounted into a mixer case with no display sticking up. So, to summarize- is there an mp3 mixer (a la Atomix) for Linux?
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
I wonder if they'll release the handwriting recognition
under the GPL. That would certainly be cool, though
I doubt it'd happen.
I'd still buy one even if that portion of it is
proprietary.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
I am using a tablet pc in compusa right now. cool wireless internet access not compelling enough to compensate for nightmareish pen input interface. Getting this text entered correctly has taken more than 5 minutes...finally had to swith to soft keyboard.which sux to.
novelty at best