USC undergrad builds DIY PowerBook Wacom tablet

Inspired by the DIY Wacom Cintiq tablet that we wrote about a few weeks ago, Florian Maurer, a USC mechanical engineering undergraduate student, recently took apart his Wacom Graphire 6 x 8 inch tablet and combined the internals with a PowerBook Titanium 800MHz machine. The result, two days later, was a a fully functional PowerBook tablet, with a touch-sensitive section. From what we can tell, he also added in a feature so that you can draw words (such as "google") and then use a gesture stroke to load that particular page. Check out the YouTube vid on the next page for the full effect. Watch out Jobs, hackers are always a step ahead.

[Via digg]

[Derrick @ Dec 5th 2006 7:25AM]

While I really appreciate this guy's ingenuity (not to mention the seemingly clean hardware job!) I think this illustrates the main reason that tablets haven't yet caught on as well as we'd all like them to. The hardware is all there and working beautifully, but the software is still a few too many steps behind. He tried about 5 times to get to digg (with good handwriting no less!) before it finally took. I'd take a MacTablet over my PowerBook, but only if the software end finally catches up.

Maybe Apple can break barriers there too...

[Ellianth @ Dec 5th 2006 12:07PM]

Which software are you talking about? All the windows handwriting recognition software that I've used worked extremely well, and had NO trouble recognizing my writing. And recommend that you go look at the vista handwriting recognition software demo/video at istartedsomething.com.

[Intrepid @ Dec 5th 2006 7:34AM]

Well good work to mr. student, but it has nothing on a real tablet running Vista. Believe me, I have used one adn it's fast and accurate (and can even be used with your fingers for the most part).

Imagine if Apple did bring something liek this out - I am sure they'd tell us that Microsoft copied them and then went back in time to release it before Apple did.

[cjrenaud @ Dec 5th 2006 11:49AM]

I bet that student knows proper sentence structure and spelling...

[Unomi @ Dec 5th 2006 7:35AM]

My question is: what is the sensor pad made of? Can it be extended/replaced into something bigger without additional hardware hacks?

Let me put it otherwise. How cheap is it to build a Wacom like sensor pad in any given size? Because if you know this, you can make a sensor pad as big as want with the same hardware. Only the size of the pad is the limit.

- Unomi -

[Andy @ Dec 5th 2006 8:33AM]

He's just using 'Ink' - the handwriting technology built into Mac OS X.

[IWantTouchScreen @ Dec 5th 2006 9:29AM]

"Wacom Graphire 6 x 8 inch tablet and combined the internals with a PowerBook Titanium 800MHz machin"

Why on earth didn't he just get an OS X x86 copy running on any of the available tablet devices that exist right now?

[cjrenaud @ Dec 5th 2006 11:49AM]

Drivers?

[Shinmaryuu @ Dec 5th 2006 11:30AM]

Not bad but i think this guy took it a bit farther and a lot cleaner.

http://www.macmod.com/content/view/166/2/

[Derrick @ Dec 5th 2006 3:09PM]

While I can't say anything about Vista's capabilities, I have yet to use a tablet and find myself thinking "This is so much easier than using the keyboard." The tech has promise, it just needs a little more refinement.

[sasoon @ Dec 5th 2006 12:36PM]

its FAKE! j/k

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Dec 5th 2006 1:27PM]

http://fabiennemaurer.com/flo/tablet/

[apoc @ Dec 5th 2006 6:35PM]

http://www.istartedsomething.com/uploads/tablet.mov

[Rob Speed @ Dec 6th 2006 2:31AM]

"he also added in a feature so that you can draw words (such as "google") and then use a gesture stroke to load that particular page"

That functionality is called Inkwell (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/inkwell/) and has been in OS X since Jaguar (or possibly Panther). It's supposedly a port of the handwriting software from Newton OS 2 called Rosetta, but I've found that it doesn't work nearly as well (as this video clearly demonstrates).

[Chase @ Mar 29th 2007 12:21AM]

If you do any real drawing with this, you will eventually end up with dead pixels unless you have some kind of clear plastic shield over the screen, something firm enough to limit the pressure on the LCD. unless the drawing tablet being used relies on being able to "feel" your pen via pressure sensitivity built into the tablet itself.