TABLET PC: How Personal?

The next generation of PCs is here. The Tablet PC as it is called, is
expected to be a real ´Pain killer´ tablet for your personal computing
ailments! We almost take it for granted that any new PC operating system must be
MS-OS, so this one is also powered by an MS-OS, called the Microsoft Windows XP
Tablet PC edition.

Microsoft was probably inspired by Star Trek where the inhabitants of the
starship Enterprise used to record and access data on a similar device as they
moved around the starship. There have been attempts to develop such a device
over the years, but the Tablet PC may be its first successful incarnation.

BACK TO SLATE DAYS!

Tablet PC is like going back from a notebook to the slate our parents and
grandparents used in the school. It´s an evolution of the notebook PC. I am
comparing it with the slate not because it´s taken the technology clock back,
but because it claims to make input to the PC as simple as writing on your
slate!

It also uses multi-modal input - you can input with keyboard, pen, or voice.
You can take notes in your own handwriting on the Tablet PC. That´s the power
of handwriting recognition. The handwriting recognition in Tablet PC can
transform your handwriting into searchable digital text. The Chinese and
Japanese should be happy with this kind of input, as they will no longer need to
struggle with the keyboard.

"There’s a database that’s been tried and tried by many people,
using many algorithms, at many different companies, and for a short time I had
the world record. And now they’re all equivalent, they’re within five errors
on 10,000 inputs," says Simard, a Microsoft Researcher, who held the record
for the most efficient recognition of English.

POWER OF PEN

Some reviewers have called it ´less-than-perfect´ handwriting recognition
but a vastly improved system for handling electronic ink on electronic paper. If
this is enough for you - and it will be for many users - Tablet PC will make you
happy. Another much desired feature is yet to come, Microsoft’s handwriting
recognition doesn’t learn by doing, so it won’t get any better at mastering
your particular handwriting over time.

You need to change your handwriting for the recognition engine as you get
used to it. The concept of electronic ink makes storing your notes easy. It even
indexes them in the background, so you may be able to search them later for any
keywords.

The performance of the electronic pen and ink is vastly improved over the pen
computers of the past.

Though Microsoft’s Journal application allows you to capture your thoughts
on the computer in digital ink, just like writing on a piece of paper,
handwritten e-mail is not possible so soon - as it will have to be delivered as
a graphic to people who don’t have Tablet PCs.

Handwriting recognition is an exciting technology, but not as easy as it
looks like. Humans work in very strange ways whereas a computer works in a very
systematic way. The combination of eyes and brain activity humans get as a free
gift from God, is much complex and highly advanced compared to the most powerful
computers developed so far.

"People do really strange things," notes Simard. He says,
"They will write numbered lists by writing the numbers first, and then
write text next to the numbers. They also like to scribble out lines, insert
extra words, and use doodles or drawings to explain their text. All of these
changes require the text to re-flow to keep the integrity of the document. To do
this the computer needs to know the difference between text and drawings, which
is no easy task."

Another difficulty with pen input is working with graphics because the input
is a digital input made of pixels on the screen. The image size gets bigger with
higher resolutions and the recognition will always work better with higher
resolution. The traditional format to encode pictures is JPEG. What Microsoft
did was they came up with a format that is better than JPEG. It’s about 50
percent better. So if a picture is one megabyte JPEG, the Microsoft format would
be around 600 kilobytes. The Microsoft format has many features that JPEG doesn’t
have.

Getting Up, Close And ‘Personal’

The features of the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system are aimed
at people who have jobs requiring them to be on the move­whether attending
meetings in the office or conducting business outside the office. People working
in temporary locations, senior executives overseeing the operations of a
geographically dispersed project, or a supervisor working on a manufacturing
floor­all these and more people are likely to benefit from this new innovation.

Tablet PC hardware will be available from different vendors, to suit your
needs and budgets. Each Tablet PC will include a tablet pen you can use to
control the computer and input text in your own handwriting.

However it is not mandatory to use your own handwriting. There is a feature
called input panel, which is an on-screen keyboard and also a writing pad that
lets you enter text when you are away from or prefer not to use your standard
keyboard.

Another feature of the Tablet PC not available in the notebook or desktop PCs
is that you can quickly rotate your screen for landscape or portrait viewing.

Putting back "Personal" into Personal Computing may look like an
attractive slogan, but the prices of the Tablet PCs will be a major factor in
India in deciding how popular the Tablet PC becomes with Indians. People who can
afford to acquire any new product that comes on the PC market will certainly be
excited about the Tablet PC. Announcing the Tablet PC in India, Microsoft
claimed it to be the "Turning point in the history of personal
computing." The imagery in the advertisement and the caption
"Microsoft India presents Tee Off with Tablet PC" also speaks for
itself. The market it addresses doesn´t look like a big volume market in India
at this stage.

ASHOK DONGRE