Windows 7 Igniting Touchscreen PC Market 257
ericatcw writes "Apple Inc. may still be coy about whether it plans to launch a touch-screen tablet computer this year, but Windows PC makers are forging right ahead. In the past three weeks, five leading PC makers have announced or been reported to confirm plans to release touch-screen PCs in time for the multi-touch-enabled Windows 7, reports Computerworld. Many appear to be using technology from New Zealand optical touch vendor, NextWindow, which already supplies HP's market-leading TouchSmart line, and Dell's Studio One. NextWindow's CEO says the company is working with partners on 8-10 products set for launch within two months, in time for Windows 7's October 22nd release."
Re:Touchscreen Linux? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Touchscreen Linux? (Score:4, Informative)
As for the actual hardware, I am not sure but from what I hear the situation isn't bad. Multi-pointer X will be in most mainstream distributions within the next release or two.
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector (Score:5, Informative)
I think I've found the best possible use for a touchpad: A portal to retro RPG Nirvana. [arstechnica.com] Basically, this guy found that running classic RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment on a touchpad is bliss. You can do it with a finger since all you need to do is tap on the screen to move and interact with the 2d isometric world. Also, there have been some major mods produced recently that allow you to play Infinity Engine games at widescreen resolutions [rockpapershotgun.com]. It's amazing how gorgeous these old games look when you're not viewing them at 640x480. I'm looking forward to playing through Planescape: Torment and enjoying the story in my RPGs again. Also, being able to do it on a train or bus is just awesome.
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector [not] (Score:1, Informative)
you thought vista's handwriting recognition was good - windows 7's is amazing. with no training at all it picks up almost every word I write, and the gesture based correction is awesome. When recognised, the word itself turns into a button that you tap to correct. It also uses gestures to add spaces, split words, join words and delete individual letters or words. Most of the time on XP was spent correcting, whereas on 7 it just gets it
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector (Score:4, Informative)
-1 Flamebait? Ouch! I guess Apple fanboys don't have a sense of humor?
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector (Score:3, Informative)
Now put them back to their original dates.
It's a pity that this got moderated down to -1. Start date had everything to do with it. The first Macintosh, bad as it was, failed mainly because by the time it got to market the IBM PC had gotten all the market and mind share.[1]
There were three O/S planned for the IBM PC, PC-DOS, UCSD P-System and CPM/86. PC-DOS was in the market first and the only thing available for the earliest IMB PCs and guess what won market and mind share?
[1] You can place the blame on that solely on the development manager who signed off on doing the system in assembly language.
Re:marketing release? (Score:4, Informative)
Count me cynical, but expect to be regaled with Microsoft-scripted adverti- er "news stories" between now and the official release.
There seems to have been a bunch of them recently on slashdot, though this is certainly of the most blatant -- not only is it free of actual interesting content, and obviously aimed at hyping a particular product, but it's written in an awkward yet breathless style that only ever comes out of marketting.
This one is particularly silly because tablet pcs are an area that MS has been breathlessly predicting as the next big thing since at least the '90s. It's sort of amazing that they're still at it, but it seems very unlikely that windows 7 is somehow the magic ingredient that they've been missing all that time...
Is it going to be like last time again? (Score:2, Informative)
As I recall, the hardware manufacturers were not pleased the last time there was a push on tablet format PCs.
Microsoft left them with a lot of financial losses after pushing them quite aggressively to run with Windows Tablet Edition, only for it to fail to take off.
I believe HP was one of the companies affected the most, and I notice they're not listed in these new manufacturers.
Re:Touchscreen Linux? (Score:2, Informative)
Linux friendly hardware is on it's way -- I have pre-ordered an ARM based Touch Book from Always Innovating [alwaysinnovating.com] that will never run Windows, it runs Linux and has a 8.9 inches 1024x600 A+ ressure sensitive touch screen
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector [not] (Score:5, Informative)
True, and worth mentioning that Win7's handwriting recognition is better than Vista's. It can literally figure out things that I wrote without looking, and that I would have a very difficult time reading if I just looked at it unaided (my handwriting sucks to begin with, but I can usually read my own writing at least).
For classes, and probably for business meetings, OneNote is close to being a killer app for tablets. I'd like to see what they do to it in Office 2010 - the current version is good but could use a bit of work in some places - but I have tons of notes on it already, with hand-drawn diagrams, highlighting, snippets from other programs pasted in, and tons of handwritten annotations (the notes themselves are mostly handwritten too, but occasionally typed). The search feature can index the handwriting and find the stuff I'm looking for, which compared to traditional notebooks is a HUGE boon.
Re:marketing release? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course this is just more me-too-ism from MS and the real devices that have ignited the touch-screen market are this [apple.com] and this [apple.com] and this [apple.com]. They are doing it because they have shown that modern trackpads and displays can be made less clumsy and responsive to more than one input type. E.g., on my macbook, if I want to scroll down, I use two fingers on the trackpad instead of 1, if I want to scroll horizontally, I move them horizontally. Easy. At this point, the trackpads on the laptops recognize up to four fingers and can can interpret some other motions like rotations. A tablet is like a mouse, but with only one really big button. Apple has given that "mouse" more buttons and that has made it much more useful. So much so that I feel confined and restricted when I use PC laptops now, even the ones with the little scroll slider on the side feel silly and clumsy.
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector (Score:2, Informative)
As owner of 3 Symbian devices which resembles the entire history of Symbian (S60, UIQ3, S80) and naturally have very advanced J2ME runtime, I better ask if we won't blame the idiot rivals of Apple?
Just look to Ovi "app store", current top seller E71 not getting a new Webkit based browser update just because it has some upgrade shipped, users being tortured by needless prompts, Developers not getting any kind of support unless they are part of some multi billion company...
If open smart phone, real smart phone market fails (or failed, if you ask me), I blame Apple's rivals rather than Apple...
My Nokia S60 E65 phone asked me for an access point while writing this message. Why? It has uname/pwd stored in memory, it has 90% signal level of that access point, why on hell you ask the access point? For example did Apple engineers hack into Nokia source SVN and added that bugger? Why the hell it asks me?
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector [not] (Score:3, Informative)
On my Vista tablet I never trained it, and it does recognize words quite well. I hardly ever need to rewrite. I have never gotten it to recognize fuck though, no matter how well I write. It always thinks it is something else like flock or flick or fluke or something starting with f. It did recognize shit once!
My tablet is an HP Touchsmart so I can touch as well as use the pen. I can write with my finger, but most of the time I don't use the touch because the precision of the pen is much better. The screen is small (12 inches) with 1280x800 resolution, which is acceptable. The machine is brutally heavy and hot so I keep it on the table instead of carrying it around. The battery life is really short because it runs the fan all the time.
I would buy a better tablet rather than a nontablet laptop because I like writing instead of typing sometimes - writing and drawing seems to give me a higher creativity. Tablets really need more battery, more speed, and larger screens. Of course that will make them way more expensive, and they're still so much more expensive than nontablet laptops but with all the other components falling in price, tablets look like they are finally going to be affordable to the masses.
Re:Poorly Marketed Sector (Score:3, Informative)
Lest we forget [slashdot.org]
Choice quote: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."