Posts Tagged ‘Active Digitizer’

New Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 Close Up and Promo Videos

Feb
28
2011

Fujitsu seem to be making some good moves with their upcoming Windows 7 companion slate – the Stylistic Q550. Importantly the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 features an Active Digitizer as well as the 4 point multi-touch interface.

What we like about it:

Wide viewing angle (essential for Tablets and something that has been lacking on the cheaper Fujitsu convertible tablets)
Bright 400 nit display
Active Digitizer (smart pen) and 4 point multi-touch
Weighs around 700 grams
Removable / user replaceable battery and 8 hour battery life
Smart card and fingerprint reader security built in.

Take a look at this Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 promo video:

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 – Windows 7 Lightweight Slate Tablet PC

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 360 degrees

The Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 is due in Australia in May. It is definitely an important contender in the productivity and enterprise Tablet space. It should even be a hit with home users and students…

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Tags: Active Digitizer, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Q550, Fujitsu Stylistic Q550, Intel Atom Oaktrail, N-Trig, Slates Categories: Slate Tablet PCs |

Motion Computing CL900 – Windows 7 Tablet PC – Australian First Hands On!

Feb
23
2011

Thanks to Brett Gross of Motion Computing Australia we had our first hands on with the upcoming Motion Computing CL900 this week.

The CL900 will break new ground for work Tablet PCs in Australia. While other manufacturers see Tablet devices as simply viewers, Motion Computing has always pushed the boundaries of real productivity.

The CL900 and other Motion Tablets like the J3500 and F5v are designed to allow you to create and capture data wherever you are – On the job, on site, in the office, on the street, in the field, on the road. The provision of both four point multi-touch and a smart Active Digitizer pen allow you to do things like:

Taking fluid handwritten notes – your handwritten notes are searchable too
Converting your handwriting to text – now or later
Scribble on you PDFs, Word Documents and Excel spread sheets
Draw on PowerPoint slides during a presentation
Annotate and mark up drawings, screenshots and diagrams
Draw your own designs and sketches wherever you are!

Ultimately, a device like this gives you access to all of the fastest and most convenient methods of input for mobile devices.

What you can expect to see on the Motion CL900:

Corning Gorilla Glass
4 point finger touch and an Active Digitizer (Smart Pen)
Wide viewing – outdoor readable screen
Gobi 3000 Mobile Broadband – Fast 3G with any carrier – Telstra Next G, Optus, Vodafone
Up to 8 hour battery life
Desktop docking station and other work ready peripherals like payment modules and scanners.

The CL900 is due to arrive in Australia sometime in April, so this is a pre-production example. Brett was kind enough to give us an exclusive interview with the CL900 in Syndey on Monday!

Motion CL900 Windows 7 Tablet PC – Interview with Brett Gross of Motion Computing Australia

Official pricing and stocked options for the Motion CL900 are still coming. Stay tuned for that and some more videos soon!

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Tags: Active Digitizer, CL900, Motion CL900, Motion Computing CL900, Slates, Windows 7 Categories: Motion Computing |

Active digitizer does all the work…

Feb
14
2011

l was in a meeting recently with a large group of executives from one of Australia’s biggest companies. Half of the executives had iPad, (tablet envy anyone? ). Early in the meeting as l was feverishly taking notes on my tablet pc (Active digitizer of course). One of the execs turned to us and said,

"Wow, you really use those things don’t you!"

Interestingly none of the 7 iPads did anything during the meeting. Why?

This is not an isolated experience. I observe it all to often. Every plane flight l take lately, l get up and have a scan around to see what the iPads are doing… I’m yet to see one doing work on any of my regular flights. I’ve seen plenty of solitaire though…

In the meantime I used my last 3 hour flight to process 250 emails… Contacts created, appointments calendared, meetings requested, emails sent, spread sheets analysed. Perth to Melbourne seems to go in about 5 mins thanks to my Tablet PC and the power of the Active Digitiser Pen!

What my experience tells me is that even the slickest touch experience cannot come close to accomplishing what the Digital Pen can. Touch input is blunt, slow, frustrating and dumb. The only thing it has is convenience. That’s good, but it’s not enough alone…

Active Digitizer = Heavy Lifting

For a science / education perspective on why active digitizer technology is still the best method of input for real work, check out this article from John K. Waters. – Style, but no stylus.

I should add of course that I own an iPad amongst dozers of touch tablets. I’ve also been working with touch input for nearly 20 years now, and the last 10 with tablets and PDA’s – In other words, I’m no stranger to what’s possible!

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Tags: Active Digitizer, Digital Ink, Handwriting Recognition, Productivity, Touch Categories: Discussion |

More on the Fujitsu Lifebook T580 / TH550

Feb
11
2011

I’ve been a bit tardy about following up my last post on the Fujitsu Lifebook TH550 / TH580 model. Unfortunately the pre-production sample I was sent came without the most important work tool on a Tablet PC – the Active Digitizer Pen! Here’s a preview of what I’m talking about:

Fujitsu T580 product demonstration

So I spent a couple of months with the TH550 without the pen and I was very impressed with the size, shape, weight and performance. The TH500 feels more solid than a standard netbook, and you’d expect that with a Fujitsu product.

I decided not to review it on video without the pen (as most Tablet PC users know – Active Digitizer Pen is for work, touch is for play). That said, our new TH550 demo stock arrives tomorrow (with pens), so a video is on its way real soon!

The n-trig touch screen performed well once I removed the unfortunately bundled Norton Anti-everything (It’s simply not designed for an Intel Core i3 tablet PC sorry Norton). N-trig have designed a swag of multi-finger gestures and swipes which I’m sure will be seriously useful. Want to see them?

N-Trig touch screen gestures

I found the three finger “show all windows” gesture particularly useful for touch. Some of the four finger gestures like the screen capture move are a bit harder to achieve since you need to use 2 hands – tablets are often one handed devices. The windows 7 screen snipping tool does a much better job of this anyway.

More on the TH550 / T580 soon. Demonstrations will be available from next week. Contact us for more on 03 9999 1601.

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Tags: Active Digitizer, Convertible, Fujitsu, Fujitsu TH550, N-Trig, Tablet PC, TH550 Categories: Fujitsu |

Bigmouth knows the tablet market…

Dec
25
2010

No doubt about it, Apple’s iPad Tablet defined the year in technology as pointed out in this New York Times blog.

However, as one commenter, Bigmouth from Santa Monica CA pointed out there is a large contingent of potential tablet users who want more than a consumer tablet can offer. They want to do more than browse the web (at least some of it), read emails, tweet and play games. They want to take handwritten notes, write, draw, create complex documents, presentations and spread sheets and use a full web browser.

You won’t find that out from the tech blogs, but the market tells as that there is massive demand for more.

If you’re wanting more from your mobile experience 2011 is going to be your year. It’s 12 days to CES 2011 (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas and what is coming will change the game! Stay tuned!

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Tags: Active Digitizer, CES 2011, iPad, Slates Categories: Upcoming |

HP Slate 500 is on the way

Nov
25
2010

The HP state 500 is finally on its way to Australia. Whilst HP are yet to announce any details on the availability of the HP state 500 to Australia, we are happy to announce that we have a number of demo units on the way out from the us in anticipation of its arrival.

We’re expecting the tablets to arrive with us in late December, so keep in touch with us for demonstration dates.

What’s all the fuss about?

The HP slate 500 is the first of a select number of lightweight "companion" slates expected to land in Australia in 2011.

The key feature of these new lightweight super mobile states is the combination of:

Touch + Active Pen

This makes the devices much more than consumer targeted media consumption devices. These devices will be used heavily for:

Note taking (students, executives, sales people)
Form filling
Data capture

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Tags: Active Digitizer, Demonstrations, HP Slate, HP Slate 500 Categories: HP, Slate Tablet PCs |

Working with a Pen Makes sense–Urban Planning

Nov
23
2010

As you’ll see from the following video demonstration, working on massive plans with a Wacom Interactive Pen display makes a lot of sense. This video shows an Urban Planner working with ArcGIS 10 to add features to a interactive plan.

Whilst the consumer technology media goes mad over touch based systems, you can see from this video that Active Digitizer Pen technology is far superior for many jobs that require precise input.

On a large screen like you’ll see touch can really get in the way by causing all sorts of accidental inputs. On the other hand this interactive pen display allows you to rest your hands naturally on screen, just like you would on a plan board.

Urban Planning using 23” Wacom Interactive Pen Display and ArcGIS 10

The Wacom Interactive Pen Display uses Wacom’s advanced active digitizer technology to deliver pressure and proximity sensitivity via the intelligent Pen.

The Digitizer Pen includes several programmable buttons that allow you to perform functions on screen and it can also take advantage of inbuilt Windows 7 Tablet PC productivity enhancements like pen flicks.

For a live demonstration of the Wacom Interactive Pen Display, contact Tablet PC on 03 9999 1601 or at info@tabletpc.com.au.

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Tags: Active Digitizer, ArcGIS, Digital Ink, Interactive Pen Display, Touch, Wacom Categories: Pen Displays, Wacom |

Note Taking on iPad Vs a Tablet PC

Nov
1
2010

As long time Tablet PC note takers in an age of iPads, we feel like we’re forever explaining the difference between a touch screen and an active digitizer.

If you’re thinking about a tablet for work, then it is important to know the distinction as you’ll see by comparing the following two videos.

In the first video, you’ll see a guy promoting a stylus that is predominantly marketed at the iPad – and no doubt, they’ll soon be marketing it to the new wave of android based tablets too.

Typically, these devices have capacitive touch screens, meaning that the touch screen activates when you make contact with your fingertip. Generally they won’t work with your fingernail or any other pen or stylus.

Capacitive touch screen stylus–Like drawing with a crayon

There are a couple of major issues with the capacitive stylus work around:

The capacitive tip is thick and blunt
The touch screen response is slow and can result in bad approximations of your ink strokes
You have to avoid touching the screen with your hands

In other words, these devices are not designed for note taking, drawing or handwriting recognition.

As you’ll see from the following video of a Motion Computing F5v Tablet PC that has a Wacom Active Digitizer, the pen is responsive and fast, and the output includes small, fine lettering. Excuse my messy handwriting!

Active Digitizer Pen is fast, responsive and accurate – Like pen and paper

Why does it matter?

The are several major productivity gains that the Tablet PC form factor can offer:
1. Note taking
  1. Searchable notes
  2. Unlimited storage
  3. Can be synchronised with audio recording
2. Handwriting recognition for interacting with programs and websites
  1. Usually twice as fast as typing on a virtual on screen keyboard
  2. Allows easy data collection in the field
3. Capturing sketches and drawings.

As you can see, Tablet PCs are designed for note taking, handwriting recognition and fine, fast input. Consumer tablets on the other hand excel for gaming and casual web browsing, but fall down when it comes to input.

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Tags: Active Digitizer, Capacitive, Handwriting Recognition, Note Taking, Stylus, Touch screens Categories: Touch screen tablets |

Tablet Kiosk eo TuffTab – Rugged 7” Tablet PC

Sep
14
2010

We posted another video today of the brilliant Tablet Kiosk eo TuffTab. The TuffTab is ideal for field workers who need to enter data on the move. As a rugged Tablet PC it is built to survive drops and bumps. With an outdoor viewable display and an IP54 rating (water and dust resistant), the TuffTab will work for you rain hail or shine.

Uniquely, the TuffTab includes a resistive multi-touch screen that can be used with rough / gloved hands. Even better, there is a version that includes a Wacom Active Digitizer as well as the Multi-touch screen. Regular viewers will know that this means the best of both worlds… The convenience of touch combined with the accuracy and versatility of the pen for note taking and data entry.

Tablet Kiosk eo TuffTab Rugged 7” Multi-Touch Tablet PC

The Tablet Kiosk eo TuffTab is another demonstration of the depth of Windows Tablet PCs offerings. No matter what work you do, there is a Tablet PC that will suit your workflow!

For more information on the Tablet Kiosk eo TuffTab visit our website.

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Tags: Active Digitizer, IP54, Multi-Touch, Rugged, Rugged Tablet PCs, Tablet Kiosk, TuffTab, UMPC Categories: Tablet Kiosk |

Pressure Sensitive Sketching on a Tablet PC

Aug
3
2010

A lot of designers ask us if Tablet PCs are good for mobile sketching and drawing. The answer is an overwhelming yes! Many of our Tablet PCs like the HP TouchSmart Tm2 seen below use a Wacom Active Digitizer pen that is proximity and pressure sensitive up to 512 levels.

Whilst they might have a touch screen the Active Digitizer technology is different. It allows you to:

Rest your hand on the screen without interfering with your sketch
Use pressure sensitivity in Photoshop – press harder for a thick line, soft for a thin stroke
Work quickly – the combination of the Wacom Active Digitizer and modern Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors means that there is no lag while you are drawing.

Check out the video below from a Tablet PC user in France who is drawing on a HP TouchSmart Tm2.