Slashdot Mirror
Tablet PCs Enter Reality
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like Tablet PCs are finally hitting real-world budgets. Averatec released a Tablet PC with an AMD Athlon XP-M 2200+ processor and will be at Costco and Staples for $1349. Here is a link to a photo overview where you can see how the pen snaps into the LCD area when not in use, what the touchpad looks like, and quite a few other pictures." Element Computer seems to have radically changed their business model -- I had hoped they'd succeed with their $999 VIA-based tablet.
is it possible to run linux (reasonably well) on them yet?
2 comments and already slashdotted ... somebody took the tablet pc hosting the DB to his home apparently...
#include "coucou.h"
Oh wow, I sure am glad I can spend over $1000 to buy something that offers no services over a pda that I would want to use on the go. Unless of course you're talking about laptop-type activities, in which case, the laptop is the natural choice..
I think the amount of subscribers nowadays actually is enough to have some slashdot-effect.
While the Averatec is priced right, for the extra cash I rather have one of Gateway's line of Tablet PCs. They're about $400 more, but you get the Gateway name and warranty (although I'm not quite sure how much that is worth these days). Also they use Pentium Ms which have better battery life over the XP-Ms. However if you're on a budget, this system looks nice.
What exactly would I need a tablet pc at home for again?
-- Bryan
Due to its Linux-based OS (sound like a Lycoris offshoot). Plus it's below $1000.
Its still big and bulky. Might as well cary a laptop. Handheld could be so much more usefull and still be smaller in size.
http://www.averatec.com/notebooks/C3500.htm
You mean... there are people that actually care about these things?
Hmmm.
lol /.'d already
although i laugh about it though, sometimes i feel bad for some unwitting companies. they never saw it coming, and who knows? being slashdotted could severely hurt the company. maybe some sort of slashdot linking ethic should be created, otherwise a net-traffic-dependent company could go bankrupt or something because of us.
While it's true that they are getting far less expensive since when they came out, they are still out of range for me. I would LOVE to have a pen based tablet to take notes on while in class (at university), but I don't want it to be my primary computer. I'm too poor (need beer money) to spend all that money on an overpriced notebook. Anybody have any ideas?
--sig fault--
dot-slashed?
The site is already slashdotted, but I assume it is this tablet that was announced a few months ago. It's nice to see that companies are already using AMD's 1.35v Mobile Athlons.
eclecti.cc
But will they see any real world use? When a pc is in the sub $1000 range and laptops are roughly the same price will there be much demand. Also is there really a demand for the home user. I can see a small percentage of business/industrial users having a reason for these, but enough to warrant selling them at costco and staples?
Other than the cost, one of my concerns was the amount of heat a tablet pc generates while in use. I was looking into them for use by nurses collecting research data. But after trying a few out about a year ago and noticing how they heat up, I didn't think the nurses would be too happy.
Still it's good to see the price come down. But I still wonder when Dell is going to get into the act.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
It seems to me that a tablet PC is really aimed at a market that is small-to-non-existant. As far as I can tell, the main selling point for tablet PCs (the ability to write on the screen like a notepad) is duplicated in PDAs. In fact, the only reasons to get one instead of a PDA are 1) it's more like a computer (HD, faster CPU, more RAM) and 2) a larger screen.
Tablet PCs, instead of becoming the indispensable laptop-and-PDA killers they were touted to be, instead combine the worst features of both laptops and PDAs. What results? Low-performance, too much weight (ie less-portable), short battery life, and high price.
There's one more reason people have both a laptop and a PDA. You can get both for less than the price of a tablet PC.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
Everytime I hear about tablet pcs on /. people post about 'using it for linux' and 'can you run linux on it' and everything. Now, I understand this is slashdot, but is it not missing the point of a tablet pc? The only reason that I see to spend more money on a tablet pc is to get the advantages of the handwriting recognition and to do interactive presentations. As far as I know, Linux either does not have the tools necessary to take advantage of this, or what is out there isn't as good as the windows counterpart. I have teachers at school that are absolutely amazing with the tablet pc and lecturing, but everything they use is ms-centric.
Is there anything out there for Linux that makes a tablet PC worthwhile? I would love to look at someone's post about Linux on tablet pc and say "yes, that would be worth it" but right now all I have to say is you're wasting your money.
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
Now I can stop sketching on scrap paper at work.
Yeah, you need to ./configure, before compile. And you shouldn't have . in your $PATH.
im in ur
Try: http://www.shipitforyou.com/cgi-bin/sgin0105.exe?U ID=2004071911394006&T1=S850+1043&FNM=24
for a picture and specs.
And, obviously, your server CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.
because the web server is running on the tablet pc
mysql://pcbuyers:@localhost/polarbear failed to connectToo many connections /. already
I believe this is exactly what you're looking for. The price is right too.
Averatec's website regarding the C3500:
http://www.averatec.com/notebooks/C3500.htm
mysql://pcbuyers:@localhost/polarbear failed to connectToo many connections
Howdy! If anyone sees Mary Beth, can you let her know that I need the goddam keys for the pickup truck? Thanks a bunch!
We received an HP tablet PC as a free gift with a bunch of switching equipment that we ordered. I'm not sure if it had a model number, it seemed to be some kind of demo unit or something. The overall impression was that it was a toy.
The handwriting recognition software was not installed on the unit that we received, so the stylus was just used like a mouse. The screen would rotate around so you could use it like a tablet or more like a laptop; it was a little bulky and short on features for any real work.
For the money I'd rather have one of the new Vaio picturebooks or an ultralight Thinkpad x31 ...
Sometimes, when a good, hard slashdotting like this takes place, people suggest that Slashdot be nice and create an internal mirror of the site before posting. Then it is inevitably pointed out that this would be copyright infringement and take hard-earned food from the mouths of the developers, ad-clickthrough-sellers, etc.
But no one seems to have a problem with caching proxies -- right?
Therefore, I suggest that instead Slashdot create its own caching proxy specifically for use with the sites it tries to melt. Maybe it would simply forward you directly to the site if the site was still responding, and respond with its internal cached copy if the site was struggling.
Taco? Anyone?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
When they are down to say $600 or less then we can talk. Until then a notebook seems to give you more bang for the buck by far. And what would I use one for that is worth spending over 1000 dollars for?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Personally, I like durability in my portable electronics. That's one of the big factors that went into me choosing a Sony PDA. I've heard they do a "drop test" from 3 feet to make sure it'll handle a beating.
All the tablet PCs I've seen strike me as being a bit too delicate for toting around the house like a magazine and still expensive enough for me to consider them impractical.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
tablet pcs are worth alot to digital artists...it provides a medium for sketching and painting that is akin to their non-digital counterparts. in fact the makers of Maya 6 (alias|wavefront) make an app called Alias Sketchbook Pro. it is an amazing program...but only usefull to those with a passion for drawing, painting, etc. i would also imagine that it would be great with Zbrush (3d modeling app)...thought i never tried Zbrush.
'cause he's right
What I want is a $400-500 tasked designed device.
I want 20+ hours of battery life. To get this, I don't need a P4 1.8 + Ghz. I'd take a P2 300 Mhz chip. I'd like it to play dvd's if possible, and be a large screened PDA for display info. I don't want it to try and compete with the next P4 3+ghz desktop or latest laptop offerings. I'd like to plug in my storage media, be it usb key chain to DVDs and cheaply and easily view my content in a form several others can see as well.
...but I can't wait for Apple to release one! (Why hasn't Apple ever tried this? They're the ones that are supposed to innovate!)
Best Buy can have you arrested
I've seen quite a lot of adversity directed at Tablet PCs which I really don't understand.
I've been using a TC1000 since November 2002 and it's an absolutely fabulous piece of hardware. It's the kind of stuff people on the cutting edge of technology should be embracing, and instead of asking what you'd want one for, finding out what you can use it for. Writing on the screen isn't as gimmicky as you'd think - taking notes, annotating diagrams, documents, roughing presentations is incredibly easy. The form factor means you can pull one out in a meeting without hiding behind a laptop screen, you can pass it around more easily to show people ideas and you can get information into it quicker.
To put it bluntly, since buying a new laptop - because I started to believe that it was a gimmicky toy - I am really missing the tablet functions and realise that I was wrong. Sure, my new laptop is faster, bigger, better, etc. etc. but the tablet functions just opened up a new way of using a PC that I really miss now. I can't comfortably lie in front of the TV and work, and note-taking isn't as easily transferred to emails, document etc. Before I could quite happily rough a document outline up in a meeting and have it mailed off by the end to all present. Can't do that with a laptop, or handwritten notes come to think of it. So, they aren't just giant PDAs, they're a new platform that needs to be exploited by apps like OneNote. I certainly hope the form-factor succeeds and heaven help us if we're tied to desktops and laptops for the foreseeable future, because that would severely cripple the importance of the computer in it.
OK I read people saying things about a tabletpc that just arent accurate. It is NOT a overgrown pda...its..well..its a really cool laptop with many of the pda benefits tossed in. So what can I do with it thats so cool you say:
1. I can read books on it comfortably
2. I can lay outside and surf the net easily and comfortably
3. I can use it as a nice picture fram system when im charging it
4. I can comfortably watch tv on planes during long trips
5. I can print to its journal our documentation, and then mark it up and highlight it before returning it to our tech department
6. I can take notes on it without offending people by using a laptop, or being as loud as many laptops
7. I can start our software, then hand it to a customer with a quick button click to rotate the screen to face them.
8. I can draw things on graph paper on it
9. Its easy to carry around and play with while waiting in long lines-you just can't juggle a laptop to do that very well
10. I can lay in bed and comfortably read.
11. If you have any graphical book, comic book, whatever-you can display it one page at a time in a nice near paper sized format
12. Its cool in a nerdy way-what more could any slashdot guy want?
I have a motion m1300. The one thing most important when choosing one of these is weight. mines around 3 lbs-don't get a larger one weighing more then 3.5 lbs or you won't find it comfortable and easy to use.
I really don't understand the logic behind tablet PCs as they are currently being marketed. This is not to say there isn't any, but can someone very much in the market, very interested in buying, explain it?
I love my Ipaq, but I don't understand why I'd want a way bigger, way clunkier version with a desktop OS not intended for its purpose.
Largely, the main intended purpose of the Tablet PC seems to be to get WinXP (or an XP-a-like mod thereof) onto as small a form factor as possible.
So the question is, why do you want XP on a form factor the characteristics of which are inclined to diametrically oppose themselves to XP's own defining qualities? I'm not just trashing XP for its being an MS OS. PPC2003 doesn't really bother me as a handheld OS. But I am asking why an OS/GUI for a not at all comporable machine could ever be expected to function ideally as the OS for all form factors and functions no matter how different.
And why does a tablet PC need anything even remotely close to an AMD 2200+ processor? Are people intending to do high end CG renders on these things? Cinematic quality video-edits?
I guess if you wanted and absolutely would not settle for anything other than the most recent, bloated, processor-intensive desktop version of Office available under XP with all the bells and whistles turned on and for some extremely hard to discern reason wanted to use it on a tablet, you might need a 1GHz machine, but far more?
What's the rationale for this being a mass market device?
Don't hold your breath...
My company inquired about getting some of these from Dell a couple of months ago. We kind of liked the one that we got from HP (although for us, in financial services, there's not much usefulness beyond the coolness factor). According to our rep, Dell has no plans to market them any time soon. Until there's a profit to make by selling them en masse I wouldn't expect anything.
They do seema bit like PDAs - and from the people that want to draw on a full-sized screen, it seems much nicer to hook a Wacom Cintiq lcd tablet (not tabletPC) up to a powerful laptop so you get good performance and a less bulky drawing surface. I've seen these in action with Photoshop and they are really, really nice.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
'cause this is a good idea
Is it just me, or is the tablet PC a solution in search of a problem? I mean, really. If you need a PDA, buy one. If you need a laptop, buy one. The way I see it, tablet PCs don't perform either task better than the aforementioned devices. Of course, that doesn't take into account its paperweight capabilities.
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
There is a pretty interesting book on how the first tablet computer came about by Jerry Kaplan called "Startup". They came up with the idea of a pen-based computer while flying on Mitch Kapor's private jet, and started a company called GO. This was back in the 80's I believe. Here is a link - you can read the reviews for more info.
because thats really what i need
who knows? being slashdotted could severely hurt the company
If their web site is that critical, then they should pay the extra $25 a month to host it on a real server at an ISP that can handle a slashdotting. Failure to do that is simply poor (or cheap) management and they'll probably not lose much business from 1 day of slashdotting.
There is perhaps more inconvenience to the thousands of slashdotters clicking a useless link. If anything, there should be a way to have mirror links set up and accessible from the main story. This has been requested before but never implemented, so either it's too hard or OSDN (rightly) fears it might lead to copyright infringement actions.
I really liked my brothers tablet pc and the handwriting software has really gone far. I could write a paragraph without having to correct one word. The only prolbems I had with it was that it refused to write mathmatical equations. Since I'm an engineer that basically rendered it useless for me. Other than that it was very nice and even the voice software worked well. FYI he had a toshiba model running the windows XP tabel OS. I'm not sure of the exact model number.
I doubt slashdotting has ever hurt any company. In fact, it usually shatters their sense of well-being at hosting their corporate web site on a PIII with a business cable from Time Warner.
Generally, they realize they have to upgrade for real, because now they're playing with the big boys.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Other than drawing-related tasks, I've never thought tablets were good for much. However, I was in a hospital elevator with a pharmaceutical company salesperson a couple of days ago and she whipped a small tablet PC (about 8 inch screen, I'd guess) from her purse, popped out the stylus and started tapping and scribbling away. It was running XP. Apparently she was able to document her last sales call and check her to-do list between the 5th and 21st floor. It was obvious she was accustomed to using it in short bursts, whenever she had, literally, 90 seconds to spare. I thought it was kinda neat, actually.
When a tablet is used like this, as a sort of super PDA, I'm sure it's more readable and, for some, more comfortable. I'm not sure I'd have any use for one of them, but I no longer think of tablet PCs as silly and useless devices. For some people, obviously, they're the bees knees.
How well do the laptops handle pressure sensitivity in artistic applications? I know that a Wacon Cintiq has "512 layers of pressure sensitivity" (more than enough for me), but it runs about $2500 each (after a $1000 price drop, mind you!) If I were to do my web comic (link delibrately left blank, go away /. :) with a new tablet like this, would it be reasonably sensitive, or just on-off? Would I be better off with a regular old drawing tablet, where I can't look at it and see the screen as well?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Hrmmmmm. If we create an article about slashdot and link back to slashdot, could we slashdot slashdot?
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
Given the fact that tablets tend to have a little less power then laptops/desktops and they are best used for specific tasks (rather then general computing), it would be great to have a light weight OS that did exactly what you needed and nothing more.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
I'm sorry, I think I was asleep when this amazing technological feat was invented. Has someone actually seen one of these vaporous sounding devices?
So what you're asking is:
How much slashdot could slashdot slashdot if slashdot would slashdot slashdot?
On Ebay you can find plenty of old, inexpensive tablet computers. They're fine for most things people want computers for.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
Apparently she was able to document her last sales call and check her to-do list between the 5th and 21st floor. It was obvious she was accustomed to using it in short bursts, whenever she had, literally, 90 seconds to spare.
"Literally", eh? That's either a really damn slow elevator or someone was playing "hey stop that" with the buttons. 90 seconds to travel 16 floors?! You're kidding.
The only thing really holding me back from taking these tablet pc's seriously is this long-held resentment I've harbored ever since wrestling with an original handspring visor. Maybe I have hand-writing so bad that is was literally unfathomable by the engineers at Handspring, but I invariably was relegated to the virtual keyboard for input. So my question to all and sundry is, has the tech improved substantially? Or are those of us with derelict handwriting forever chained to the keyboard?
So far, all of the tablets I've played with use a regular laptop screen. This is a big mistake, as it makes the portrait orientation wonky. Since regular laptop displays are made for wide horizontal but NOT wide vertical viewing angles, the distance between your eyes is enough that the display looks a bit off.
I'd love to hear a report from someone using a better technology. Are the TFT displays significantly better in this respect?
My tablet PC rocks. It works perfectly at all times without batteries; in fact, it has never needed batteries. If I loose my stylus I can carry on using my tablet PC with any ol' stick, pencil, or other pointy object. It also works in all weather conditions except for the pouring rain (too much rain causes the screen to run and the characters to become difficult to read.) To create a backup, I merely fire my tablet PC and get a new one. Clay is plentiful, after all!
At our medical clinic, we have an Electronic Medical Records system, which the clinical staff access mainly through handheld computers. Every time there's a new story about tablets, we look into them, and every time we've reached the same conclusion: not yet.
For our usage, we really like wireless, pen-enabled notebook PCs. While our EMR system allows a tremendous amount of data to be entered easily with a point-and-click interface, nurses and docs still need to do some free-text entry. That pretty much ties us to a device with a keyboard. (I have heard that the handwriting recognition in XP is really good, but we're skeptical about it being good enough. I guess I should actually test it, huh?)
If the tablets come down well below touchscreen notebooks in price, maybe we'll try one and see if we can live without the keyboard.
For those that are interested, we've been using the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series (P1120) which is a great little machine. It's about 2.2 lb, and its Transmeta processor squeezes 4-5 hours out of the standard battery, while running Win2k or XP and a Windows terminal session over the built-in 802.11b. We went 18 months of daily use before we had a single significant hardware failure. (But then two of our first four went out nearly simultaneously... $225 to repair each. Considering they each see about 60 hours of use every week, I think that's not too shabby.)
We first bought them with the extended-life batteries and some spares with chargers, and those spares never left the shelf. The next ones we got with the standard battery and no spares, and we've never had a problem with battery life during our staff's 12-hour shifts. Our staff is pretty good about plugging them in when they can, though.
The big complaint with the P-series is that the screen is really dinky, which is hard on staff with older eyes.
So we tried an iBook. While it's possible to get a touchscreen retrofit for an iBook, we decided to try it without the touchscreen. It works okay, but the lack of touchscreen is a problem for staff. Some staff are willing to trade the touchscreen for the Mac's bigger and sharper monitor, though. On the down side, it's had two main logic boards go out and it's pretty heavy by comparison. There are a few staff who love it, but most prefer the Fujitsus.
About a week ago, we purchased a Fujitsu B-series Lifebook (B3020D) and (so far) it looks spectacular for our usage. It has a 10.4" touchscreen, Atheros A+B+G wireless built-in, it's only 3 pounds, and it claims a battery life of several hours with its Pentium-M processor. (I'm guessing three hours under our conditions, but I haven't really tested it for that.) Staff loves it so far, and I suspect we'll be getting more of 'em.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
TabletPCs are NOT touch-sensitive. They use EM resonance based pens, so you can lean your arm on the device while you write, or hover over it. Some can even measure the tilt of the pen, or determine the difference between the tip of the pen and the eraser end.
Element Computer's "tablet", however, has a touch screen like a PDA. It's not even close to a tablet, and would not work like one even if it had the right software.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
First Apple release a new ipod, now an article about a laptop with a different kind of hinge. It's all happening at once, I can't keep up.
I was contemplating a Palm Zire, camera included and all. One thing that bothered me, besides it running proprietary software, was its size. It probably pushes pockets of lighter shirts down...
Now, why would they want me to carry a notebook sized tablet? In the immortal wisdom of Duke Nukem: "This sucks!". Where's the mkt depts.? Aren't they supposed to come up with fetish products, something we would drool about?
No, no, no in my dictionary... I guess with this kind of quality research, you may well outsource the entire marketing to Bangladesh.
And it will probably improve!
I never used a tablet, but after using a laptop for 6 months now, i could imagine how a tablet would be immensly convienient in crowded areas.
I always find myself being very concerned with somebody bumping into my laptop when using it on the subway - or anywhere there is people walking by or standing close to you.
MikMik Baby Organics Mikkaworks
For that much money, I'm more than happy with my Sharp Zaurus SL-C860. It has the whole tablet flippy thing, is cheaper and smaller, and runs full linux.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
I work in autonomous robotics research. The robots run wirelessly, but we capture and display mapping data in real time, currently on laptops as we follow them. If we want to direct the machine to a place of interest, we click a position on the map and it drives itself there, avoiding obstacles etc.
The processing and memory requirement for generating these maps from laser and other sensory data is VERY intense. An athlon 2200 would be perfect for the job.
At the moment, walking around with a laptop and following a robot is not only difficult to read, but difficult to manipulate the mouse control, requiring a sort of one armed balancing act and a careful grip.
This tablet would be perfect, if it runs linux.
-
I would think it would be for artists using Photoshop or some other graphical blandisher -- especially if the touchscreen is pressure-sensitive. All the advantages of a fancy touch tablet, but directly on the screen.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
version of Linux for the tablet PC, but having no tablet PC, I cannot test it.
Here's the Link
Mod points are pointless when you browse at -1.
You don't seem to get it. No need to 'type' (be it virtual or whatever) on a tablet pc, if you exclude passwords, email adresses and URLs (and I guess coding, read: everything that leans toward the cryptic. Recognition works word wise, not letter by letter), because the handwriting recognition is well enough already.
My tablet runs everything I need it to, and is simply the best choice for learning Japanese I ever found: you come across unknown kanji in some text, e.g. a newspaper, you input them by pen and immediately get the reading without spending 10 minutes looking it up in a paperbased or electronic dictionary. And after that I just copy that word into my vocab drill application so that I won't forget it the very next minute.
Yet the device is handy enough to rest in my lap while trying to read said newspaper or literature. That's why tablets would be every students wet dream, were it not for the small instabilities that plague them, as in my case: using digital ink might crash Word or One Note, hibernating doesn't work properly and the graphics/digitizer driver will cause a total freeze every now and then... Actually, that driver issue is what's responsible for all the trouble, so that might only be temporary.
Do I need to mention that running Trek games or the good ole ST Encyclopedia on a slate tablet is one of the ultimate geek experiences available right now?
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
is to drop all this "as-good-as-a-real-PC ...Honest" stuff.
/. on etc
Look, it's 12" long, 9" wide & less than 1" thick.
You aren't going to get a fully functional computer into that space at reasonable cost, pea -brain.
What they need to do is get rid of:
1)Optical drives
2)The floppy drive
3)Any processor above ~ 1GHz
4)Copious quantities of RAM
i.e. BARE BONES, VERY bare bones.
All it needs is a low-power processor, a cut down OS that will fit into minimal quantities of RAM (and will be stored in a ROM or similar solid-state storage), wireless networking & onboard everything-that-currently-comes-on-a-card (and cut down editions).
With the higher bandwidth wireless networking coming over the horizon it's soon going to be feasable to run the tablet as a dumb terminal hooked up to a proper PC - let's face it, anyone who can afford to be using such a gadget instead of pen & paper probably has a PC as well.
This has several advantages:
1)Cheaper Overall for the tablet (assuming that you have a PC already)
2)You aren't putting all your eggs in one basket - if you drop it it's just an LCD and a few cheap components, not a complete PC
3)You can upgrade it easily, since you actually upgrade the host computer using standard components - as long as you don't break it, the tablet could last a decade or more as it's just relaying what another PC is processing
4)You still have a real PC for typing tasks\gaming\hacking\programming\reading
Oh, and since it won't have so much stuff in it you can either make it cheaper by using less-miniature components, or still use the mini ones (but less of them) and have more space in the case for batteries - imagine getting 12 hours out of it.
And if you want to use if for watching films, either copy them to hard disk before you go out, or, if you opt for one without a hard disk which does a network boot (requiring wireless networking support to be built into the BIOS, but hey, they did it with CD's), you could have a little box to clip on the end with oodles of solid-state storage.
Just using the storage density of todays USB pen drives, you could get 20Gb in one, that's 4 movies anyway, minimum.
Alternatively, stay within range of your network and watch them straight off the main PC.
Stick a few ports (USB & firewire) & some PCCard slots and you're sorted for printers/keyboards(if you're desperate) & TV reception.
All the functionality of a full-blown PC in a small box with a screen on the front, for a fraction of what it would cost today.
Utilising all the wireless internet hotspots hanging about nowadays, yuo could even run it on the other side of the world (albeit for quite a bit of lag).
FGD 135
First, the Postnuke developers are responsible for the spelling. Second, the site was not /.ed so bad ... it has handled being /ed many times. Instead the session table failed after several people tried to tinker with it.
The Postnuke modules.php file has now been renamed with a simple html file to redirect everyone to a bland html page with the images and some of the text. This will keep out all problems with the database and hopefully allow everyone to enjoy the images.
LPH
www.tuxreports.com
It was a coincidence. The sessions table was buggered (about every 8 seconds someone 'attacks' that server) and I was working on the site.
The corrupt table was deleted and replaced, modules.php (postnuke file) was replaced with a simple html file with a link to a version of the article so that it loads quickly and without all the fluff.
All should be fine.
LPH
www.tuxreports.com
...is very practical for doing your work in bed or at beach.
There you are, staring at me again.
I'm a particle physicist and it seems to me that these tablet PCs might be suitable replacements for the traditional logbook. The idea is that it would be a community tool that can be could be carried around the detector as people fix things (think of a big industrial setting), connect to a database via wireless to log changes, recognize the handwriting for multiple users, embed eps or jpg/png/gif in the log, etc.
Has anyone used these in an industrial setting? What do you think?
(no text)
- Sites intending to gather real information about their visitors, and their feedback.
- Sites with non-spiderable generated server-side response. This includes the common case when they have archives and databases the user should be able to browse, and slashdot is not mirroring it all.
Which is basically when google cache doesn't work so well.
I use speech recognition on my Notebook every day (Dragon Naturally Speaking), which is considerably faster and more efficient than typing after some training, even if you type fast, at least for most kinds of texts I write. With a Tablet PC - which I cannot afford at the moment - correction of a dictated text within Dragon should be a great deal faster than with mouse and keyboard. Therefore word processing in combination with speech recognition seems to me a natural application of Tablet PCs, and the relevant market is certainly not a niche, at least, not once more people will have found out how well Dragon works by now. I will buy a T-PC as soon as I have the money.
1. Gorilla arm
2. Dropping it
3. Scratching the screen
It rocks! It has a lot of features and no bloat. Instant-on; you never have to wait for it to boot up. A keyboard would be nice but the graffiti input feature works just like your handwriting! It even works with script! And notes are automatically saved. Great drawing programs, spreadsheets, etc. And it's not the best gaming platform, but with tic-tac-toe and exquisite corpse you've still got more games than a Mac.
I want someone to put a modern PDA processor in this clamshell and maybe put palmOS on it or Symbian, since Apple killed the newton, but otherwise leave it basically the same -- black and white is fine for me; throw out a tricked out color version for a few hundred more of course, and you can put all the silly gadgets they're putting in PDAs nowadays, but give me for $200-300 a basic greyscale PDA that you can type or draw on that is as easy and wonderful to use as the eMate. Throw in wireless, a usb or firewire port, and it's set. Basic text editor, web browser, terminal emulater, drawing program, etc., decent amount of nonvolatile memory but no hard drive -- simple, inexpensive, and elegant.
Oh yeah, it's a cool looking green color too, but Apple of course could produce these things in iPod colors.
I played with a co-worker's Windows pda once and the handwriting recognition was absolutely mind blowing. I signed my name across the thing in cursive, and it typed it right in without missing a letter. Compared with the graffiti crap on the palms it was like magic. I haven't had the opportunity to play with a tablet pc, but I'd have to assume that throwing the power of a ghz+ processor behind the recognition software would only make it that much better.
and a new free update to Tablet O/S that comes with XP SP2 raises the bar even further with even better recognition, even with writing at an angle.
At home, it's my main computer and I have a docking station for it, but I also roam around the house and elsewhere doing things like: * surfing the web wirelessly while sitting/lying in a comfortable position * using ink in MSN Messenger, which is just SO COOL. There is nothing like ink to personalize a message and allow you to reply graphically rather than in boring text * I wirelessly manage music playing in my house * I have literally thousands upon thousands of pieces of music on my computer in PDF format. I can sit my tablet on my piano sheet music rest and play from there without having mountains of paper everywhere (regardless of where i travel) * I can also plug the MIDI output from my piano into the Tablet, so I can compose and edit music interactively at the piano (my piano has a MIDI retrofit) * ... and so much more .. most of which has little to do with handwriting recognition, but absolutely needs the tablet form factor and/or ink.
The site ShipItForYou.Com's Internet Security statement is a bit strange:
"ShipItForYou.Com's Internet Security is a VeriSign Secure Site. Our security is unmatched anywhere on the Internet. Your name, credit card number, and all other information are NEVER stored on the Internet. Once you enter your information, they are encrypted and sent directly to our accounting/order processing system that is NOT on the Internet."
If it is not on the Internet, how is it sent to the accounting/order processing system? Do the 'encrypt' it with Whitespace and fax it over?
Lawyers spend most of their time writing and editing. In a typical firm what happens is that an attorney will write something, print it out, edit it with a pen and then hand it either to a junior attorney or a secretary. Then the secretary or junior attorney will input the changes. It's a total waste of time, because then the typist has to go back and try to figure out what the hell the lawyer was talking about.
With good software (and I admit that XP is only getting there), an attorney could edit right on the screen. Now some of you will ask why attorneys can't do that now on screen The answer is that editing is an interactive process where often people want to scribble in the margins or otherwise engage with the document.
My prediction? When tablet PC's get good enough, you'll see the ranks of secretaries thin out at some law firms. People who understand IT (and most lawyers don't) will be able to shrink the overhead at their firm. Everyone else will be lunch.
And they work great for taking notes in college lectures -- particularly math and physics courses that require lots of graphs and things. You can have the freehandedness of a standard binder or notebook, and the benefits of having it stored as text, too.
"True dat with a wiffle ball bat." -- kabrakan
I hate it when people say "affordable" and mean $20,000 USD.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
...I've had a lot of trouble with it (hardware and software) however Element have *great* customer support. When I tried upgrading to their new distro, guess what: it didn't work! Well, I got in touch with them, by e-mail, and within a day I had a working machine again (they put some special isos up for me :)
Having said that, after using Linux for about four months or so: I don't like it. Flame me if you will but I just prefer FreeBSD, so that's going on there (I'm already in the process of modding my case).
Anyway, my point has nothing to do with Element, nor BSD advocacy. A friend of mine also has a tablet PC (Windows, I'm afraid) and between us we have *never* used the tablet functionality. I'm just wondering, does anyone? Or do people just buy laptops with spinning screens just because they're novel and a cool gadget (like me ;)
Christopher Harrison
That sounds likely. Lawyers are always trying to undercut each others prices. I am amazed they can afford to eat, they work so cheap.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
the only use i can think of is to use the tablet as a notebook - just like i make my notes on paper during meetings. making those notes on the computer screen would not be a huge deal, but it would be useful.
the problem is, in order to be useful, it would have to work perfectly. it would have to work the same way a Newton worked - it would become an electronic notepad.
therefore, it won't work on windows - windows and working perfectly is an oxymoron. it just won't.
i think we will see the same thing that happened with the iPod. a HD based mp3 player was a good idea, and lots of companies tried it before Apple. yet, what they produced was complete crap (i still have an old Nomad lying around.. ). so it never caught on.
Windows tablet PCs are not quite as bad because at least you can still use them as normal notebooks - which is what 99% of people owning them do...
At least for illustrators, Alias SketchBook Pro is a godsend. I don't use it myself, but I've spent the last six months doing Tablet PC UI research for Microsoft, and the people who are most passionate about these computers are professional illustrators and artists. Unfortunately that's not MS's primary target audience, but hey....
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I'm serious! There is this local cafe, where I work, that has free Wi-Fi (although they expect you to buy something from them, before you use it). The girls behind the counter can't get enough of my demonstrations! They can use the pen as a cue stick in Tablet PC Pool (a PowerToy on Microsoft's site.), compose music with the pen and play it back (with another PowerToy), fill in crossword puzzles, paint more comfortably on the computer, etc.! Every week I come up with something new to show em, and it is starting to ... eh... pay off, now!
My Gawd, how come this piece of trawl was modded up as Insightful?
Can it do 3d modelling?
Computers can.
--
Incidentally, artist's tablets with a built-in display have been available for years.
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of tablet PCs. I've wanted one ever since I saw Captain Kirk using one on Star Trek. But artists are not going to be first in line for the current crop of devices.