News Week of February 1, 2009

Fujitsu Updates LifeBook Notebooks and Tablets

Fujitsu has updated the LifeBook T5010, T1010, P1630 and T2020 convertible Tablet PCs, which now join the mini convertible notebook LifeBook U820, providing users with integrated AT&T BroadbandConnect HSUPA. In addition, the LifeBook E8420 notebook is expected to boast support for EV-DO connectivity, a feature that is slated to become available in the second quarter of this year.  (Source: Traian Teglet, Softpedia)
Posted Thursday, February 5, 2009 by ChrisD
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Open house Feb. 12 to introduce campus community to Tablet PCs as teaching tools

Jennifer Snodgrass, an assistant professor in the Hayes School of Music, will demonstrate ways she and her students use Tablet PC laptop computers in the classroom. Snodgrass uses the technology to teach music theory classes.

�We want the campus community to see what we do, how you can use Tablet PCs to deliver instruction, and how effective our tutoring center has been,� Snodgrass said.

Funding for the Tablet PCs used in the classroom was made possible by a grant from Microsoft, an Appalachian Foundation Fellows Grant, and funding from the Office of Academic Affairs and the Hayes School of Music.  (Source: University News, Appalachian State University)

Doctor�s blood work awarded

Brian De Francesca the chief operating officer at Tawam Hospital, said the IT award was in recognition of a project involving sophisticated equipment used by doctors on call all around Al Ain. �Our doctors and nurses visiting home patients are able to access their records using a tablet PC. This is very hi-tech stuff. They can access the records from anywhere in the world.�   (Source: Mitya Underwood , The National UAE)
Posted Monday, February 2, 2009 by ChrisD
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Showcasing Windows 7 Platform with Applets

Wordpad enhances the document reading experience by using the multi-touch platform and using the zoom and pan gestures. Zooming, panning and inertia lets the user get to a particular piece of content very quickly in an intuitive fashion. By using the zoom gesture, the user can zoom in or zoom out of the document which is akin to using the zoom slider at the right of the Wordpad status bar. On multi-touch capable hardware, the user can zoom in and out of the document by placing his fingers anywhere within the document window and executing the zoom gesture. Wordpad also supports the pan gesture to pan thru the pages of a document that is open in Wordpad. By executing the pan gesture, the user can scroll-down or scroll-up a document similar to using the scroll bar of the Wordpad application.

In Paint multi-touch data is used to allow users to paint with multiple fingers. It is an example of an application that allows multi-touch input without the usage of gestures. For Paint�s functionality, providing multiple finger painting ability was more compelling and enriching than allowing for zoom, pan, rotate or other gestures that act on the picture in a read-only mode and not in an edit-mode. New brushes in Paint are multi-touch enabled, and they handle touch inputs via multiple fingers and allow the user to simultaneously draw strokes on canvas on finger drag. These brushes are also pressure-sensitive, thereby providing a realistic experience with touch by varying the stroke width based on the pressure on the screen. While adopting the multi-touch platform to enhance the end-user experience in Paint, conscious design decisions were made to preserve the single touch experience for functionalities where a multi-touch scenario does not apply such as the color picker, magnifier and text tool.  (Source: Riyaz Pishori and team, Windows 7 Blog)

Asus Aims for Tablet PC Revival

In true netbook form, the Eee PC T91 will be smaller and lighter than your typical full-function tablet. Weighing about two pounds and only an inch thick in tablet mode, with an 8.9-inch LED backlit screen, the T91 will be about the size of a hardcover book -- perhaps the ideal dimensions for the tablet format.

In addition, where many earlier tablets have relied on pen-based input, the T91 will instead use a touchscreen. This is sure to be controversial to some; pen input would allow handwriting recognition, for example, which Microsoft has long touted as a top tablet feature. And who wants to get fingerprints all over their screen? But there's no denying that the touch screen will make the T91 much easier to use on the go and for basic applications like Web browsing, where a pen can be cumbersome.

This won't be the first Eee PC to feature a touchscreen, in fact. Asus debuted the Eee Top 1602 desktop model late last year, which featured a 15.6 inch all-in-one touchscreen form factor. Some analysts predict that touch-based computing will be a major trend in coming years, particularly since Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 will include a touch-based UI.   (Source: Neil McAllister, PC World)