Welcome to the 4th issue of the new TabletPCBuzz newsletter, I hope you are enjoying this resource. Bill is taking the week off this week due to professional and family reasons. He will be back next week to announce our second winner of a free copy his book, as well as to bring you part 2 of his Mind Mapping and Tablet PCs article. Watch for that, it should be a good read.

In his absence, I've written the following article on various electronic input methods. Thanks for inviting us to your inbox, and see you around on the site!

The Many Faces of Electronic Input
By Spencer Goad

A few years ago the only consistently accurate method of data input consisted of a mouse and a keyboard. The last few years have shown drastic changes in that, and the Tablet PC has been placed on the cutting edge of data input technology. In this article I'll cover several of these input methods, their history, and where I think we are headed in the future.

Covering the most basic method first… simple keyboard input. Ever since the very first "computers", which took up whole rooms of space, keyboard type input has been around. Modern keyboard design originated from typewriters, and were later ported over to computers when the first word processing came about. Now what about the future of keyboards? As other methods of input become more and more mainstream, I think we will start to see the keyboard fade out. They will still be around for a good many years yet, but faster input methods like speech recognition will begin to start to put away their usefulness. With slate only Tablet PCs that are out there now, we are already starting to see this happen.

Moving on, we come to handwriting recognition. Ever since the late 80s accurate handwriting recognition has been one of the most sought after technologies in the entire technology industry. Apple was the first to really take a good strike at it, with the Newton PDA technology. While ahead of its time, Newton proved that handwriting recognition could be used as a reliable input technology. There were others before the Newton, but they had even less success than the Newton did.

Other companies have since poured millions of dollars into trying to perfect this technology, with many different efforts and implementations. Now with the Tablet PC Microsoft has achieved what is acclaimed at the best handwriting recognition ever, with over 95% accuracy. I don't think handwriting recognition will ever be "perfect", as there are too many possibilities and user errors. I know I for one sometimes even have trouble reading my own handwriting. A more accurate expectation for the future is that handwriting recognition technology will be able to read handwriting much better than the average person. While it won't still be our main input method a few years out, it will remain a very useful technology and gain widespread use.

Now we come to speech recognition, which is my favorite input method for the future. The concept of speech recognition has been around even longer than keyboard or handwriting recognition input. In the 1870's Alexander Graham Bell had the idea and began work on a "phonoautograph", a machine which would convert speech to written text. Bell was unsuccessful in building this machine, but it was while working on this that he got the idea for what we now know as the telephone.

So the idea has been there for a very long time, and when computers came along it was naturally one of the input methods that seemed perfect for them. After all, there are not many things we do that are more natural than speaking. Until just recently though, the processing power required for speech recognition made it unpractical. Now days though, there are quite a few options for speech recognition out there. Even the base Windows XP OS has started to integrate it. In the future I think speech will become the mainstay input method. What will this future recognition look like? I'll point you to just about any episode of StarTrek, in which they talk to the computer almost like it is a person and it has no trouble understanding and converting to text. It won't matter how much other noise is in the room, the computer will still be able to understand you. This is where we are headed, and I'm pretty sure it won't take us till the 24th Century to get there. Already many people have started choosing speech over keyboard input, and this is a trend that I think will continue.

I hope this article has helped you to understand these methods of electronic input to a greater extent. If you are interested in more information about the history of these different methods, visit your favorite search engine (I like Google) and do a search for each one. There are many, many resources out there that make for some interesting reading for those interested.

This last week we have been running a contest to give away a few TabletPCBuzz T-Shirts. To enter people have been sharing the creative ways they use their Tablet PC. Forum member Big Lar had this to say about using his Tablet PC in amateur astronomy -

"One of my hobbies is amateur astronomy. Believe it or not, this hobby requires much more gear than just a telescope. When observing at a telescope you normally have a sky atlas (basically a map of the sky), an observing plan or schedule, a CD or MP3 player (Holst's "The Planets" of course) and something to log your observations and sketches. Creative use of my Tablet replaces all of these.

First, the sky atlas. Many good atlas programs are available. SkyMap Pro is the one I use. It has a nice "red" node that is easier on the night vision. Red mode alone, even with the backlight turned all the way down is still not quite dim enough to preserve dark adaptation, but applying some red film to the screen solves that problem.

For observing planning, I also turn to SkyMap. It helps me find the best times to observe specific objects, but I usually complete my plan in Excel and print it to Journal for ease in annotating it at the scope.

The 30 GB hard disk in my Tablet makes it easy to decide on what music to listen to. A nice set of Sony wrap-a-round headphones plugged directly into my TC1000 makes sure I don't wake the bears.

Logging my observations is where the tablet really shines. Most of the stuff I've mentioned so far can be accomplished with any good laptop. But my Journal logbook is unbeatable. I have a custom Journal template that allows me to log my observations exactly as I would on paper, only without them blowing away. My template consists of data about the conditions, the location, the time, the seeing (the stability of the atmosphere), instruments used (scope, eyepieces, etc.), and my general observations including an eyepiece sketch! I'm no artist, but basic sketches at the eyepiece really help you after an observing session validate what you were seeing. For this reason alone, before my Tablet, I never took notes at the telescope eletronically. Now, it is the only way to go.

I know it is a kind of "vertical" hobby, but the Tablet sure makes it much nicer for me."

And that's this week's story. We're looking for more brave volunteers to share their experiences with the TabletPCBuzz community. Please email us at bill@techforyou.com and share your experiences.

Question: What is the easiest way to draw smooth shapes for diagrams in (Windows) Journal?

TabletPCBuzz: The easiest way is to draw the shape best you can, then highlight that shape with the selection tool. Goto the "Actions" menu and choose "Change Shape To...". From there you can choose for Journal to turn your freehand shape into a smoother and even circle/oval, square/rectangle, or a straight line. At the moment Journal can't recognize and change shapes into any shapes other than those, so you'll have to rely on your artistry skills for that.

Got a question about the Tablet PC OS? A specific Tablet PC? Wondering how to do something with your Tablet PC? Whatever your question, send it to Ask the Buzz at spg@tabletpcbuzz.com. Thanks!

For all TabletPCBuzz members, we are holding a contest on the site. We are giving away a couple of TabletPCBuzz shirts from our logo store. This contest will be over on Wednesday, so this is your last chance to enter! To enter the contest or for more details, see this forum post - http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3394

Windows Journal: Converting Ink to Text
In Windows Journal you can convert your handwritten notes into typed text for inclusion in e-mail, word documents, etc. To do this, use the selection tool to highlight the text you want to convert. Tap on the Actions menu then goto, "Convert Handwriting to Text". This bring up a confirmation window which allows you make any necessary corrections to the text. After this you can choose whether to copy the converted text to the clipboard, or insert it as a text box back into the original journal document.

This week's poll question:
Are you considering/waiting on the second generation Tablet PC devices?
Vote now at http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com!

"Worldwide PC shipments totalled 34.5 million units in the first quarter of 2003, a 5.5 percent increase from the same period last year and a better start overall for the year, according to preliminary results from Gartner."

Here is a bit that interests me, and a good example as to why I see such a potential in the Tablet PC market. Mobile computing is becoming more and more rampant, and the Tablet PC is going to be right in the middle of that in the future -

"Mobile PC growth continued to outpace the desktop PC segment. Tablet PCs and the launch of Intel's Centrino mobile platform continues to bring attention to the mobile PC, but were not major factors in driving shipments.

"Centrino is focused at the corporate market initially. In addition to budget issues, it will take time for that community to qualify it within their IT environments," Smulders said. "The marketing campaign around Centrino, however, is raising general awareness of the benefits of wireless mobile form factors."

More information is available in the full article, click the link below.
http://www.dialelectronics.com.au/articles/c6/0c015fc6.asp