DIY 13.4" Carbon Fiber Touchscreen Tablet PC

slampana — May 17, 2010 — This is a project I have been working on in my spare time for the last few months. I wanted a Windows 7 touchscreen tablet with a large screen that could handle HD video and wasn't too thick or power hungry. The build cost for this was around $600-700. I had to sit at a weird angle for filming so I had a couple issues with the touchscreen, but it was only becuase of my odd positioning. The touch responsiveness is acutally pretty good, not iPad good, but good enough for me . Enjoy!

http://carbontablet.blogspot.com/

Microsoft’s 'Manual Deskterity' Enhances User Touchscreen Experience (w/ Video)

by John Messina
from http://www.physorg.com/

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Microsoft’s “Manual Deskterity” adds power and a more natural user experience to the tablet PC.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Microsoft's "Manual Deskterity" combines touch and pen for a more natural user experience working with Microsoft Surface (tabletop touchscreen) and newer versions of Windows 7 tablet.

Microsoft’s aims are to combine pen and multi-touch input into a more natural user experience. For example, moving papers around on your desk and jotting notes on them, and then dropping them into folders for filing. The pen input is great for certain tasks, but not others; the same holds true for touch.

Microsoft’s new user interface exhibits many interesting features when combining the pen and touch interaction on the touchscreen. Take for instance, if a user wanted to copy an object, they can do so by holding it down with one hand and dragging the pen across the image to peel off a new one and place it anywhere on the desk.

The above video demonstrates many user interface techniques that would have to be learned to fully utilize all the features incorporated into “Manual Deskterity”. Microsoft believes that the natural user interface will ease the learning process and prevent users from trying to remember a sequence of commands or menu operations.

Microsoft’s Bill Buxton explains what the Natural User Interface is all about, in the above video.

Microsoft’s researchers have arrived at the following perspective: the pen writes, touch manipulates, and the combination of both yields new tools.

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Pen writes, touch manipulates.

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Pen plus touch equals new set of tools.

By combining the two, Microsoft researchers are working on a whole new variety of tools for interacting with your computer. There are also plans to adapt this user interface to work on mobile devices.

© 2010 PhysOrg.com

WePad comes out of tablet hiding, reveals its €450 price and August availability

By Joanna Stern
From http://www.engadget.com/

There's no I in pad. Only we, of course. Yeah, we've been wanting to make that joke for awhile -- but in all seriousness, Neofonie, makers of the 11.6-inch WePad, held a press conference in Berlin today to reveal a bit more about its Linux-based slate. According to our German counterparts there will be two versions of the Intel Atom N450-powered tablet, which has two USB ports and an onboard webcam -- the 16GB / WiFi version will go for €450 and the 64GB / HD capable model for €569. We're a bit intrigued by the promised "full HD" support of the larger version, but Neofonie was quick to say that there is no NVIDIA inside. Hmm... Broadcom's Crystal HD, perhaps? The company wasn't willing to let reporters play with the early build of the multitouch device, but they did show off some videos of the Linux interface. You can watch a few after the break, but the live widget-based GUI looks extremely attractive and amongst other things, the browser supports Flash. It sort of hurts that we won't be able to get our hands on one until August, but we're happy to hear that the company, unlike some others, is taking the time to get things right.

Updated: We can't help but laugh at the fact that many sites are reporting that the WePad on display at yesterday's press conference was actually running Windows 7 underneath the Linux-looking UI. Apparently the company has more work to do than we originally thought.

WePad, Engadget German

Courier: First Details of Microsoft's Secret Tablet

By The Paperboy (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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It feels like the whole world is holding its breath for the Apple tablet. But maybe we've all been dreaming about the wrong device. This is Courier, Microsoft's astonishing take on the tablet.

Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.

Until recently, it was a skunkworks project deep inside Microsoft, only known to the few engineers and executives working on it—Microsoft's brightest, like Entertainment & Devices tech chief and user-experience wizard J. Allard, who's spearheading the project. Currently, Courier appears to be at a stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies.

Microsoft has a history of collaborating with other firms, especially in the E&D division: Zune and Xbox have both gone through similar design processes. (And plans for the Microsoft Store leaked through a third-party agency were confirmed as genuine prototype layouts and concepts.) This video is branded Pioneer Studios, a Microsoft division within E&D that specializes in this kind of work, working with another agency that's a long-time Microsoft collaborator on confidential projects.

The Courier user experience presented here is almost the exact opposite of what everyone expects the Apple tablet to be, a kung fu eagle claw to Apple's tiger style. It's complex: Two screens, a mashup of a pen-dominated interface with several types of multitouch finger gestures, and multiple graphically complex themes, modes and applications. (Our favorite UI bit? The hinge doubles as a "pocket" to hold items you want move from one page to another.) Microsoft's tablet heritage is digital ink-oriented, and this interface, while unlike anything we've seen before, clearly draws from that, its work with the Surface touch computer and even the Zune HD.

Over the next couple days we'll be diving much, much deeper into Courier, so stay tuned.

Microsoft Courier

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