Friday, February 09, 2007

Touch Screen Sexy

With touch screens almost becoming ubiquitous it is not that surprising to see it hit the mainstream media too. Today, while on my travels in China I caught a story on “CNN in Asia” tracking the recent success of touch screen technology in gadgets today. Because of the relevance to the Tablet PC space I thought I’d post it for you as it came back on a rerun.

Recently I was having a conversation with Nicholas White regarding Ultra-Mobile PC and the role it plays in convergence. I explained that no longer do we hold Pen Based Computing as the primary intention of a Tablet PC but rather portability and mobility seem more common descriptions. With that in mind it seems that monikers and keywords associated with these devices are changing too.

What I am seeing is a real move from Ultra-Mobile PC being described in terms of “form factor” as opposed to “pen based computing.” It will become more common to hear things like PDAs and Mobile Phones described as Tablets than the traditional description of these devices today (…big call I know, but I believe true). Think about it, Tablet Edition is now embedded in Vista! When you think of Tablet PC, do you think of the pen anymore, or is it now just a small PC? I’m interested. If your new to these devices then perhaps all you know of Tablet PC is it’s a small handheld.





Touch Screen Sexy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Hugo
Hope you are enjoying your trip.
I am a proud owner of a brand new R2H.
Hand held pen based input was exactly the reason I wanted one (from long before they were mentioned on the internet I wanted an a5 sized tablet). I want to be able to write notes at Uni and be able to save them and convert them into text. As a 2 finger typist at the best of times I don't want to muck around with dialkeys.

I was having trouble getting it to work in portrait mode, when I remembered a program called Dexpot which gives multiple desktops like in Linux. I installed it and very easily configured the second desktop into portrait mode - easy to hold like an A5 notepad!

Happy travelling Brett
(in Brisbane)

Hugo Gaston Ortega said...

hey BRETT!!!!! So good to hear from an Aussie mate...

It warms the heart to here of an Aussie using a UMPC, AND, I might add, it is great to hear that you've bought according to your requirements. I hope I played a role in the education process to "some" degree, and I am glad it is the R2H that you chose as the pen features really suit your requirments.

The trip here is awesome. I am off to the Greta Wall of China now...WOWO! Speak soon