Talking about voice notes, I'm dreaming of an iPod-like device which can be used to record anything I want on the go. Go to school, take a record, write the resume later.

3:18:47 PM    

Tablet PC, is it the future?

Tablet PC-like projects popup every 2 or 3 years. Fujitsu launched a touch-screen portable 4 years which was never saled anywhere else than Japan. And there was several similar products many years ago.

I doubt it will really take up. The real problem is to try writting on a LCD screen: it's not confortable at all. First the writer is always concerned by scratching or breaking the coat and the visual feedback is made in a very low resolution compared to paper. That last point really matter because you don't recognize the shape you're writting and it's getting worst because no LCD screen is readable when positioned horizontally.

Hey but why the PDA are working so well? Palm PDA are designed to accept input on the move. The user holds the device whith one hand while writting with the other one. That way, the view surface is put in a more confortable angle and most of the text input is made at the same place. It's not tiring.

How does it compare to Apple's inkwell? Inkwell is to be used with a tablet device, like a Wacom tablet, and this input method is more clever: the input area is horizontal while the view area is vertical. The only problem is to write without looking at the hands and many people can't make the shift.

I don't think there's really a market. It's hard to write faster than typing on a keyboard. You can always write very fast, but then you can't read yourself and the computer will never be. As marketed by MS, the Tablet PC is designed to annotate documents but I think that this strategy doesn't match the reality. If I want to annotate a document, shouldn't it be easier to add voice notes, postits and links to other documents?

3:09:56 PM