Recycled Computing

Wouldn't Life Be Great with an iSlate?

- 2008.07.04

Popularity: LEMLEM

del.icio.us Bookmark in del.icio.us

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Memory To Go Special: New 2008 iMac 2GB $42 / iMac Intel Core2 DUO & MacBook Pro 2GB $36 - 1GB $20. MacPro 8 Core Memory 4GB kit $154 / 2GB kit $94 -- Free shipping available.

Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, Apple Batteries and Apple A/C Adapters. Also Great prices on Used Apple Computers. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.

OWC: Burn DVDs, DVD-DL, CDs, DVD-Ram - FAST! Superdrive upgrades from OWC starting from $31.99 with options for nearly every Mac. Models with Lightscribe, Blu-Ray too!

Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you.

MacBook/MacBook Pro / MacMini / iMac Intel Core2 DUO DDR2 667Mhz 4GB Kit $80, 3GB Kit $60, 2GB Kit $40, 1GB $20 - Click to Maximize your Macs...

While I find myself recycling old hardware a lot, in this column I'd like to recycle an idea: Translating handwriting into text.

I admit that I own a couple of Newtons and used them when my job required taking notes in a classroom. I had the tiny serial keyboard and could combine text with drawings - great for Algebra class!

I'm not going to go into the many virtues of this yet-another-Apple-product-far-far-ahead-of-its-time, since better writers and Newton fans have already done so.

What I miss most about the Newton is it's ability to gather data. Ever have someone give you their business card and place it in your pocket, only to have it disappear into that black hole where your missing socks go? As rule, the older I get, the quicker I have to record something.

PDAs Are Too Small

Have you tried to use either a PDA or smartphone with a tiny fingers keyboard or your cellphone keypad? Yes, the LolliPop Gang can do it, but the rest of us have issues.

To me, the Newton's stylus and large screen allow me to instantly enter that business card info before I lose it. I can also gather and store data at remote locations and synch the data with either my laptop or desktop computer. Despite the early horror stories about Newton's handwriting recognition, the MessagePad 2100 (last in the series) works fine for me. Granted, the MessagePad has to "learn" your handwriting style, but once it has seen enough of your writing, it does a very good job for address entry, calendars, to do lists, and short notes.

Ebook Readers Are Too Limited

The reason I bring this up is the recent development of a revolutionary screen from E Ink Corporation in Cambridge, Mass. Both Sony's $299 Reader and Amazon's $359 Kindle use this technology to produce an electronic book. The advantage of such a device is it's storage capacity. The Sony can hold 160 books, and the Kindle can hold 200. Imagine college students being able to hold all of their textbooks (and supplemental reading) in a form factor slim enough to slip into a backpack, purse, or coat pocket (both are roughly 7" x 5" and less than 1" thick). Imagine being able to write a paper with all of your reference material available in one spot. It would basically be "text for the rest of us".

I am borrowing the technological description of the E Ink display from Scientific American ("Library to Go" by Stuart F. Brown, pages 108-109, June 298, Volume 298, Number 6):

Basically, microcapsules the size of a diameter of a human hair are placed between two thin sheets that work as electrodes. The microcapsules contain positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles. When a negative charge is applied to the top sheet, the white particles are attracted to it and the black particles are drawn to the positive sheet on the bottom.

This screen uses very little power, and it is estimated that 7500 pages can be turned on a single charge of the Sony Reader battery. If you are interested in examining the Sony Reader, they are being sold at the Borders bookstores. They are expensive, but the reading experience is delightful. (Especially being able to make the text size larger.)

Apple Has the Technology

Combine this with touch screen tech from the iPhone and the iPod touch, and you can see how this device would also be able to collect information and notes for data collections. Doctor's, technicians, lawyers, inventory control, teachers, scientists, and the "rest of us" could use customized software to fill out forms to fax, text, and email from remote locations.

Paperless bureaucracy. The mind boggles.

For those of you who worry about color, E Ink is working on a screen using red, green, and blue filters, and prototypes are already capable of displaying thousands of colors.

For those of you thinking that you need a stylus to use these devices, you are correct. I know that Steve Jobs is opposed to using a stylus, since he feels that a stylus is easily lost, but if the guy would stop wearing those black turtlenecks and start using a pocket protector like any self respecting nerd....

I even have a name for this text device, the iSlate. Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?

Amazon KindleSony Reader

Apple is just the company to produce such a device. First of all, it would look cool. The Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle look kind of frumpy. Apple could distribute ebooks through the iTunes Store. If you are a publisher, I would think you would jump at the change to sell media through this established Internet business.

The secondary function of a data collector is a larger field than one with think - business, academic, medical, and military uses come to mind immediately.

Only one thing - don't call it Newton II.  LEM

Recent Recycled Computing Columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2008 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, PowerBook, MacBook, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.


Have a question?
Ask an expert!

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Best Used Macs
Video Cards
Email Lists
InfoMac's Low
End Mac Forum

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
MacMall
TechRestore
MacResQ
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.