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KeyPoint's Adaptxt keyboard enters beta for Android tablets, adds handwriting for that extra touch
Aftermarket keyboard layouts are still relatively rare among tablets, which makes KeyPoint Technologies' new Adaptxt beta for Android tablets that much more valuable. Along with optionally splitting up the keyboard to make thumb typing that much gentler, it expands on the stock keyboard formula with aggressive word prediction and shortcuts for words or whole sentences. The wait for a tablet version has also rewarded the patient with a handwriting recognition extra, just in case they'd like to revive cursive writing as an art form. The beta is is free to use for anyone who's running at least Android 2.3 on a big-screened slate, although only for a "limited period" -- if you're willing to accept a few rough edges, we'd recommend hitting the source links before there's a price tag attached.
Google Translate app update adds handwriting recognition, breaks barriers
The Google Translate app for Android received a pretty significant update yesterday, bringing handwriting recognition to its bullpen of functionalities. The app, which added voice recognition back in October, can now recognize handwriting in seven different languages, including English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. It's probably most important, however, for Chinese- and Japanese-speaking contingents, who can now use their handsets to translate characters that aren't typically featured on English keypads. The update to version 2.3 is available now, at the source link below.
eFun announces aPen A5 Smart Pen for all of your iPad / iPhone writing needs
Want to write on your tablet without all of the requisite finger grease? How about a stylus? Too pedestrian? What about a Smart Pen? Better yet, what about the aPen A5 Smart Pen? eFun's peripheral includes a stylus and a receiver that hooks into your iPad or iPhone's 30 pin connector, digitizing your handwriting or drawings via a number of compatible apps, including the company's own free Studio Basic Light. The A5 is set, broadly, for a release some time in 2012, and should run you around $99 whenever it actually hits the market.%Gallery-137038% Zach Honig contributed to this report.
E FUN's aPen A3 stylus brings digitized scribbles to Android, BlackBerry users (video)
Students heading back to school this week will have a new stylus to toss in their backpacks, now that E FUN has released its aPen A3 digital pen. The company's latest note-taker is essentially like Livescribe for Android and BlackBerry users, allowing writers to digitize and record their handwritten missives directly to their devices, via Bluetooth. Compatible with Android and BlackBerry OS 4.6 and above, the tool also features a photo sketch function that allows users to scribble on digital images saved to their smartphones, PCs or Macs. If you're interested in getting your own aPen A3, hit up the source link, where you can buy one for $130. Otherwise, head past the break for a tutorial video, along with the full press release.
Qualcomm takes sci-fi one step closer to reality at Computex 2011 (video)
While flying cars are still a pipe dream, other technologies are quickly transitioning from the stuff of sci-fi movies into the very tangible realm of reality. This was definitely the case at the Qualcomm booth here at Computex where we got to experience two interesting new technologies -- zero shutter lag and the ultrasonic pen. What if when you pressed the shutter button on your phone the camera captured 2 frames before, one frame during, and 2 frames after that instant? That's the idea behind Scalado's zero shutter lag and Rewind, which speed up the process of taking pictures on a phone by letting the camera continuously sample images and allowing the user to create a composite shot from the content available in up to 5 frames.Also on display was Qualcomm's ultrasonic pen that we already played with at MWC. By using an ultrasonic transducer attached to a pen and a phone with 3 microphones (like the MSM8660 Mobile Development Platform), the ultrasonic signal can be triangulated to determine the location of the pen. Once calibrated, the phone is able to accurately capture handwriting either on the screen itself or on a standard sheet of paper up to 30cm away. We noticed that accuracy and distance appear to have improved since February -- at this pace, perhaps we'll all have flying cars soon after all? Check out the gallery and hit the break for our hands-on video.%Gallery-125105%
Livescribe Connect upgrade lets you share doodles in several ways, just not wirelessly (video)
Pen pushers who took a chance on Livescribe's note-recording smartpen have benefited from some nice apps, hacks and upgrades along the way. Now the company's latest productivity-booster is a software update called Connect, which lets you share your scribbles via Email, Google Docs, Facebook and Evernote, as well as through Livescribe's own Pencast platform. Some of these sharing options were already available but Connect tries to speed things in an interesting way: by letting you set sharing instructions even as you jot down a note. Simply draw a double line and write, say, 'Facebook' or 'Google Docs' somewhere on the page, and the sharing will take place automatically the next time you sync to your Mac or PC. Most of the sharing options are free, but if you own an older Pulse model or the new entry-level $99.95 2GB Echo you'll need to buy a $15 upgrade before you can share via Email or Google Docs. Heck, we'd pay way more than that if only Livescribe would come up with a way to sync and share wirelessly -- docking this thing feels about as cutting edge as a quill. Video and full PR after the break.
Switched On: Pen again
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Last week's Switched On discussed how some next wave notions from a decade ago were trying to reinvent themselves. Here's one more. Surging smartphone vendor HTC is seeking to bring back an input method that many wrote off long ago with its forthcoming Flyer tablet and EVO View 4G comrade-in-arms: the stylus. A fixture of early Palm and Psion PDAs, Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile handsets, slim, compact styli were once the most popular thing to slip down a well since Timmy. Then, users would poke the cheap, simple sticks at similarly inexpensive resistive touchscreens. After the debut of tablet PCs, though, more companies started to use active digitizer systems like the one inside the Flyer. Active pens offer more precision, which can help with tasks such as handwriting recognition, and support "hovering" above a screen, the functional equivalent of a mouseover. On the other hand, they are also thicker, more expensive, and need to be charged. (Update: as some have pointed out in comments, Wacom's tablets generate tiny electromagnetic fields that power active digitization, and don't require the pen to store electricity itself.) And, of course, just like passive styli, active pens take up space and can be misplaced. The 2004 debut of the Nintendo DS -- the ancestor of the just-released 3DS -- marked the beginning of what has become the last mass-market consumer electronics product series to integrate stylus input. The rising popularity of capacitive touch screens and multitouch have replaced styli with fingers as the main user interface elements. Instead of using a precise point for tasks such as placing an insertion point in text, we now expand the text dynamically to accommodate our oily instruments. On-screen buttons have also grown, as have the screens themselves, all in the name of losing a contrivance.
Qualcomm's ultrasonic pen demo transcribes from paper to device (video)
LG's Netflix-lovin' Revolution wasn't the only standout demonstration at Qualcomm's MWC booth -- the company also cut out a bit of space to showcase a wild new ultrasonic pen that's able to transcribe writing on paper directly into one's phone, tablet or laptop. The gist of it is simple: the pen can be equipped with an actual ink pen or a simple nub, and there's a battery-powered transceiver inside. Using standard, off-the-shelf microphones on a mobile device, your future phone or tablet could pick up vibrations from the pen with a radius of around 30 centimeters. Underlying Epos software is used to convert vibration and coordinate information into text, and from there, any 'ole text app can be used to field the results. We were even shown a brief demo of a prototype language translation app that enabled the demonstrator to write a sentence on paper beside the phone, and have the phone itself take in the English phrase, convert it to text, and then translate into a foreign tongue. It's a fairly impressive feat, and there's some pretty obvious usage case scenarios here -- this could easily reinvent the art of note taking in class, where those who prefer to jot down reminders on paper will be able to log those same bullet points on their laptop as they scribble. Vid's after the break, per usual. %Gallery-116712%
Papershow for Teachers introduced at Macworld 2011
Papershow made a big splash last year at Macworld during its introduction, and since then has apparently sold fairly well in business circles (the product is now being sold in Staples as well). This year, Papershow is introducing a new edition styled for education applications, called Papershow for Teachers, that features not only a few upgrades to the functionality, but a few targeted extras meant specifically for the classroom. Just like the previous edition, Papershow for Teachers has a special pen (with a camera built into it) and a Bluetooth-enabled USB drive that hooks right into your Mac with all the necessary software pre-installed on it. The pen's camera can only be used with special paper (a pad is included with the package, and you can, of course, buy more) that has a series of dots on it to tell the app where and when you're drawing on the screen. So very easily, anything written on the special paper gets translated up to the screen. That's the basic functionality, but a printed toolbar on the paper adds a lot more. By "pressing buttons" on the printed toolbar, the pen can change colors, change shapes, or even do things like pull up graphics or draw shapes on screen. The new teacher edition includes an extended toolbar with even more functions -- teachers can now pull up a virtual calculator on screen, and even do things like draw an angle and then ask the software to calculate exactly what it is. Any images created with the app can be exported out to email or PDF, so teachers can share notes with their students right away.
Graffiti for Android scribbles Palm OS memories all over Google's platform
Gather around the campfire, children, as we tell you a story from or youth. You see, back in our day, we carried around PDAs driven by Palm's operating system (no, not that one). Primitive and bulky by modern standards, sure, but if there's one aspect we remember most fondly -- or at least most vividly -- it'd be Graffiti, the shorthand writing system for your stylus-based text entry. And guess what? You can now bring that same frustration enjoyment to Google Android. Available now via Market, the free, OS-wide keyboard alternative comes care of Access, who gained the rights to Graffiti following the Palm / Xerox settlement from way back in 2006. The future is the past as remembered by the present, or something like that -- download away.
Intel Classmate PC becomes Toshiba CM1 in Japan
Toshiba and Intel have announced that they're partnering up to deliver Chipzilla's convertible Classmate PC to Japanese youths -- just in time for the new school year. Sporting a 1.66GHz Atom N450 and an overhauled design, this latest iteration of the educational use netbook will start filtering through Nipponese school corridors this August. It packs 160GB of storage room and 2GB of RAM under a nice 1,366 x 768 10.1-inch touchscreen. The latter flips around to facilitate pen input with an included stylus, while the whole package is protected by a well rubberized and ruggedized case. Now if only it could get some multitouch and one of those crazy 15-hour batteries, we might consider going back to school and using it to finish our floristry studies. Full PR after the break. Update: The Japanese school year starts in April, so technically the CM1 is just in time for the second semester. So long as it's on time, we don't think anyone will mind much.
Lenovo educates us on the history of the tablet, has 'exciting products to announce this month'
Okay, Lenovo totally knows how to use Twitter. The company's press account has punched out a teasing little note, inviting us to keep a close eye on the near horizon with the expectation of exciting new products to come. We'll concede that aside from the leaked roadmaps, we have no real lead on where this might be heading, but if the video that accompanied the tweet is anything to go by, we can expect a device that (a) almost certainly has handwriting and touchscreen capabilities built in, (b) is extremely likely to sport the ThinkPad branding, and (c) may or may not have a physical keyboard. That is to say, we could just be looking at a quirky new approach to promoting the latest X-series tablet refresh (X201T anyone?), or maybe Lenovo is going way back to its roots and is about to shock and awe us with a ThinkPad slate. All we know for now is that the video is after the break and well worth watching.
Pen input faces off against hardware and software QWERTY keyboards: there can be only one (maybe)
It's completely anecdotal and lacking in what some might call "scientific rigor," but we're digging the, ahem, relevance of Phil Gyford's little text input faceoff he performed for his blog recently. The piece pits an Apple Newton, Palm Vx, Treo 650, and Apple iPhone up against each other, with regular pen and paper and a laptop's full QWERTY keyboard thrown in for reference. The results may or may not surprise you, but (spoiler alert) after the MacBook Pro took top honors in blazing through a 221 word passage twice, the iPhone beat out the rest of the competition, with the three pen-related inputs (pen and paper, Newton MessagePad and Palm Graffiti) all taking up dead last. The iPhone, Treo and pen and paper all were relatively close in speed, and naturally your mileage may vary. That said, where do you think you fall? Drop in your results in comments (the full text he used can be found at the source link) or hit up the poll below with your best guestimate. We're dying to know! %Poll-40521%
Audi A8 MMI adds handwriting recognition to list of 2011 features
The A8's Multi Media Interface (a fancy name for a nav unit with media player attached) is already a pretty sophisticated piece of tech, but Audi has opted against resting on those laurels and has pushed out a new feature for the luxury saloon's next iteration. The 2011 A8 (available in Spring 2010 -- crazy, we know) will benefit from the same handwriting recognition as promised for the next-gen R8, wherein the user is able to scribble his destination all John Hancock-like and then use the touchscreen to complete his instructions. With Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean character support, this could be a particular boon for gadget lovers of a more Eastern persuasion. And just in case you're fretting that the rest of your gear won't get as much love, there are further plans afoot for connecting the car via UMTS and distributing WiFi goodness to the devices inside it. The only thing this is missing is a Snoop Dogg voiceover for the ultimate in convergence tech. Video after the break.
Dell Mini 3i unboxed in China, capacitive stylus included
One lucky Chinese blogger was kind enough to share his Dell Mini 3i unboxing experience beyond the Great Firewall, just a tad before Dell officially announced their first-ever smartphone. What's interesting is that the China Mobile version comes with a special stylus for the capacitive touchscreen -- a very handy tool for writing Chinese -- but there's been no mention of this accessory for the Brazilian 3iX. Dell's also bundled a 3.5mm adapter for the mini-USB port in case their handsfree isn't good enough for your audiophilic ears. Yeah, too bad about the missing headphone jack, but don't let this deter you from checking out the Mini 3i's full glory after the break.
Apple's patent application for pen-based computer remembers fingers can't write
Uh, um, ok... remember how Steve Jobs called the finger, the "best pointing device in the world" while chiding the stylus? Well, guess he wasn't lumping handwriting capabilities in with his lambasting if there's anything to this patent application for recognizing and processing "ink information" from a pen-based computer system that went public today (filed in July 2009). Naturally, the patent app makes liberal mention of tablets as the most recognizable pen-based computing systems; something that will certainly fuel speculation about the much rumored (it is still a rumor right?) Apple tablet possibly sporting a, gulp, stylus. Now go ahead and check the video after the break and listen to Steve Jobs describe the insanely great "pointing device we're all born with" (1:54) in addition to how Apple "invented a new technology called multi-touch" (2:03) with the patents to prove it (2:27 and 6:19). Oh MacWorld 2007, isn't there anything you can't do?
eviGroup's Pad is a 10-inch 3G tablet with personality
Time to freshen up the old netbook market with a dash of Windows 7, a pinch of touchscreen functionality, and a generous helping of... Seline10? eviGroup, the crew responsible for the attractive 5-inch Wallet MID, has announced the 10.2-inch Pad, whose pièce de résistance is the Seline10 artificial intelligence software that's been in development for a decade, if you can believe it. Its purpose is to act as your secretary / assistant, and while the novelty's good, we all know how well Clippy worked out. Fret not though, it's just an optional extra and shouldn't detract from the appeal of a device that offers 3G and a/b/g WiFi connectivity, one VGA and three USB ports, multicard reader, webcam, microphone, and the old faithful 1.6GHz of Atom power. A price of under €500 is being touted, with further details set to emerge over the coming days.
Audi's next-gen R8 MMI recognizes handwriting, probably increases your insurance premium
There's comes a time in every technology's life when the envelope gets pushed just for the sake of getting pushed. For Audi's already complex MMI, this is it. Right around this time last year, we were drooling quite profusely over the A8's next-generation Multi Media Interface (which is basically a snazzy name for an in-dash NAV system), but this year, we're wondering who exactly will take advantage of the R8's next system. Aside from getting a much needed UI makeover, Autobild is reporting that said platform will include support for handwriting recognition. So far as we can tell, you simply pencil in your next address with your greasy digits and tag the correct word that pops up there on the right. We're still waiting to hear why this is preferred over a decent voice recognition system, but hey, so long as James Bond approves, who are we to argue?[Via German Car Blog]
JCHyun's Udea Discovery PMP / dictionary loves to love you
Looking for a PMP that will be your eyes, ears, mouth, hair and forearms? Perhaps you should gently turn your attention to the JCHyun Udea Discovery -- a device that treads that tremulous space between MP3 player, Tricorder, and utter waste of money. Still, it's kind of packing a lot of heat for the asking price (179,000 KRW, or about $176) -- with 32 dictionaries in 4 languages (Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese), a video player, audio player, handwriting recognition, and an interface that looks like Windows Mobile... but likely isn't. You won't see this in the US anytime soon, so find yourself a good importer.[Via PMP Today]
iPhone firmware 2.0 adds Chinese handwriting recognition, Newton sweats
Screen shots posted on Chinese site wretch.cc allege that iPhone firmware 2.0 has added support for Chinese handwriting recognition in addition to a revamped (albeit non-recognition) Japanese interface. While that's still light years from an Apple admission that not everyone is in love with the on-screen keyboard, it's one small step toward functionality that seems to make boatloads of sense -- in any language -- given the phone's generously proportioned touchscreen and its reluctant but unavoidable nomination as the Newton's spiritual successor. What isn't clear is how folks are expected to draw characters, seeing how there's no provision for an on-board stylus, the entire interface is designed for finger use, and we don't see many owner rushing out for a Pogo. However Apple intends for this feature to be used, the implementation looks pretty hot, capable of operating in both portrait and landscape modes. Sadly, it seems that Chinese is the one and only language supported at the moment; sure you don't want to let everyone in on the Graffiti-esque retro fun here, guys?[Via Mac Rumors]
