Loren Heiny, my brother, passed away on Sunday. He was a gentle soul and loved us and many of you. We recognize Loren’s passion about technology, in particular robots and NUI (Tablet PCs, iPads, and the future), will be missed greatly.
Our family is gathering to celebrate Loren’s life. We would like those who knew him and were influenced by him to join us for a picnic this Saturday at 2PM at our sister’s home. We posted information and directions on Loren’s blog.
Developers looking for an Ink Canvas toolbar for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) should check out http://inkcanvascontrols.codeplex.com/. The WPF Ink Canas Toolbar v 1.0 supports drawing, erasing, and selecting. The toolbar was posted in April.
Thanks to Robert Craigo for the pointer.
The 2010 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-Based Technology on Education (WIPTE) will be held on October 25th and 26th, 2010 at Virginia Tech. The organizing committee invites submissions of full papers, posters and short presentation abstracts by June 15th. The committee also invites entries to the 2010 WIPTE Video Contest with a deadline of September 15th. The video contest carries a $3,000 first prize.
Submissions in each category should describe experiences using Tablet PCs or other pen-based technology in K-12, higher education, or other teaching and learning environments. Full paper submissions will be peer-reviewed, other submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee. Accepted submissions will appear in a Monograph to be published by Purdue University Press and authors will present their work at WIPTE 2010. For detailed calls and additional information see www.wipte.org
Online conference registration will be available at www.wipte.org by June 1st, 2010. The early bird registration fee is $100. After September 30th, 2010 the registration fee is $150. The registration includes a reception, a dinner, a copy of the conference proceedings, and the opportunity to win a variety of raffle prizes. Last year’s prizes included Tablet PCs and smart phones.
Do you think your brand new iPad is revolutionary because of its size and weight? Think again.
One of the pictures I have hanging on a wall is of a Windows CE slate made around 2003 mocked up with a screenshot of my brother’s circuit drawing program built in 2001 (on Windows 2000). This shows the state of the hardware back in 2002 / 2003.
Windows CE Device, slate design, 2003
Apple iPad, 2010
Study these two photos. Notice the size of the hands compared to the devices. They’re basically the same size. It looks like the Windows CE device from 2003 is lighter than the iPad because there isn’t as much torque on the hand. Of course, the battery may have been smaller & lasted only a few hours. But it shows what has been possible from device size & screen size for this last decade.
Also, there is a big difference between a capacitive touch from a resistive touch. For drawing, which one is better? It’s not trivial to draw on a capacitive only touchscreen. Much like you can say it wasn’t easy to navigate with a stylus and resistive screen. There are tradeoffs. The good news is that the industry looks like it’s moving toward merging the two directions to provide the best user experience.
Round 2 of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Touch & Tablet Accessibility Award begins today.
Students are competiting to create a new education application that uses Touch & Tablet technology in accessibility scenarios to expand the possibilities about how a user (student or educator) interacts with the computer. Round 1 began in January and now ten teams advanced to Round 2, where those teams will finalize storyboards and build functional prototypes of their software applications. Of these ten teams, the top two will be invited to compete in the final round, which will be in Warsaw, Poland in July.
Congratulations to Round 1 participants for your unique approaches to improving accessibility issues in education. Now, it will be exciting to see how the top 10 progress! Good luck!
Teams advancing to Round 2:
SBIM-NPAR is hosting a conference June 7 -10 at University of Savoie at Annecy, France. Researchers, students and practitioners working on sketch-based systems can now submit papers. See the call for participation for details.
Paper deadline: April 7, 2010
Papers acceptance notification: April 28, 2010
Papers camera-ready deadline: May 5, 2010
Whatisnew.com (WIN) is a member of the Tux Reports Network. WIN started in August 1996 and was the customer communications blog for a computer components distributor. Today, WIN is run by Tux Reports Network and has evolved into a center for information related to Tablet & Touch technology, such as on all-in-one PCs, Tablet PCs, Netbooks / small-notebooks and other personal computer technologies & devices.
Windows Touch
New PC hardware combined with Windows 7 allow you to use your fingers to directly interact with the PC. New PCs support multiple fingers (two or more) so you can tap the screen, scroll, resize windows, pan and zoom.
Tablet PCs offer all the power of a standard Microsoft Windows-based notebook plus additional features that improve mobility including pen-input and handwriting recognition. These enhancements increase the number of ways people can use computers for practical and creative work.
Tablet PCs have an integrated digitizer with pen or stylus to allow natural interaction. Operating systems with Ink support include Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Windows Vista Premium SKUs, and Windows 7. Software applications listed on TabletPCPost.com highlight these special features. Remember that you can also use standard Windows applications on Tablet PCs.
Small-notebooks, also known as Netbooks and ULCPCs are ultra-mobile PCs are available with digitizers and designed for basic uses, like surfing the internet. These typically use Windows XP Home or Windows 7 Starter.
