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A Breath of Fresh Air for Pen and Digital Inking Fans

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In a time where those who see and recognize the value of pen and digital ink, might liken themselves to Don Quixote titling at windmills, Michael Gartenberg has penned a piece on Engadget talking about the Microsoft Courier that offers a breath of fresh air. Coming after a week of iPad frenzy, wherein Steve Jobs says that anyone who designs a Tablet/slate requiring a stylus essentially has failed, Gartenberg’s piece offers some nice perspective.

Here’s a quote:

The pen isn’t dead. The pen’s been searching for a place in computing for more than a decade. We’ve seen experiments in all different types of pen computing from the PC to the PDA and the phone. They’ve all pretty much failed, and today’s hot commodity is capacitive touch. Microsoft’s Courier video shows how the pen can play a prominent role in the evolution of computing interfaces. While fingers are great for many things, there are tasks better served by the ability to manipulate at the pixel level. Handwriting and the ability to take written notes is one of them. Content creation and painting is another. It’s clear Microsoft knows all this — in addition to Courier, there’s the Deskterity project that melds pen and touch on Surface.

Go read the rest of the Gartenberg’s piece.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Joe

    04/11/2010 at 7:33 pm

    Honestly, I read pretty much every article on Engadget, and this is the first Gartenberg article that I didn’t feel dumber for having read.

    Sure, it’s stuff we probably already knew over here, but still, it’s reasonably insightful for once.

    • Brett Gilbertson

      04/11/2010 at 9:35 pm

      LOL, good point Joe.

  2. Doctor_Roe

    04/12/2010 at 4:09 am

    If Steve Jobs said that the pen is the input and navigation mechanism for 2010, we would all be sporting Apple stylus right now. There’s always one *thing* that causes controversy and stops short, the progress. I suspect the pen is the delta, in this case. Want a pen?…go with a Tablet PC, No pen? … an iPad is for you! Why can’t we combine and offer the best that technology has to offer?

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