All I can say is that using this program has been some of best times I have had on my Tablet PC in a long time... 

We have all been waiting to get our hands on this program for a while and it has now been released to Tablet PC MVP's for testing - the install is currently not available to the general public.  I have a quick screen capture that was made as a top level overview of InkSeine.  There will be a full InkShow done in the near future, but we wanted to bring you some footage of it in action right away. 

In this GBM ShortCut I take you over a quick look at using Ink and some of the radial menus with the pen.  I also have a very quick example of using the linking and then on to the searching capabilities of the InkSeine.  If there are any question about the application please feel free to ask, and also remember that there will be a more in depth look at this cool program here on GottaBeMobile soon!!

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Microsoft Research's Ken Hinckley is looking for some help from the UMPC community. He's posted a request in our GottaBeMobile.com forum's, looking for help in designing InkSeine to work with typical UMPC screen resolutions.

He's on a tight deadline, so head over to our forums to post your comments and help impact the design of this upcoming release.

I'm trying to do some work to adapt the UI for InkSeine to handle UMPC devices a little better than it currently does, and I know a lot of people on this site follow this market segment closely (I currently don't).

I do have access to an older one that has a 640x480 res display on it. I am wondering if I really need to kill myself to make some of our UI usable at that resolution (we have a few dialogs, help tips for our gestures, etc. that are larger than that right now) or if the market has moved on and most people have a larger resolution (and if so, what dimensions?).

So, if anyone knows typical UMPC screen pixel dimensions that are supported, please do fill me in - I'm hoping to get a quick answer here rather than researching this for real and I'm under a bit of time pressure since we are trying to get our next release wrapped up Real Soon Now.

Bonus points: do people typically use these devices in Portrait or Landscape orientation? Or both? The one I have only seems to work in Landscape but I wouldn't be surprised if something has gotten messed up with its config to result in that limitation.

We've been talking up InkSeine for quite awhile, and it looks like we might have something to get really excited about come the first of next year.

Ken Hinckley, one of the primary Microsoft Research developers behind InkSeine, let us know that Microsoft plans on releasing the research demo in the first quarter of 2008. It will not be a product; rather, it is being released as a "functional research demo to push what is possible with Tablet PC". Be sure to what these two videos ( first and second ) and visit the InkSeine project page and browse the tutorial to learn more.

Here is what Ken had to say regarding the potential release of InkSeine:

We're working hard on InkSeine to clean up some of the bugs and usability issues we've identified from our internal beta testing, and to plug in some of the key features that are missing. (People want to be able to delete an old unused page from their notes? The nerve of them!)

But we still plan to make the demo available externally as a prototype for people to play with. On the home front I'm Dad to 9 month old identical twin girls now, so I can't always make as much progress on the future as I'd like to while I'm changing diapers But we're looking at making it available probably sometime in the 1st quarter of next year (and just to emphasize - it's not a product - but a very functional research demo that tries to push on what is possible with Tablet PC).

The demo really works best on Vista because the improved handwriting recognizer there indexes your email and adds all the out-of-vocabulary words to its word list (names, technical terms, acronyms, whatever) so make sure you've got yerself a Vista tablet ready to go for '08

In this Channel 10 video, Microsoft's Dr. Bill Crounse gets up close and personal with the folks at Microsoft Research, and takes a look at InkSeine and LucidTouch, both of which have been talked about a lot here on GottaBeMobile.com.

Ken Hinckley, who comments frequently here on GBM, is interviewed and demos InkSeine on a HUGE tablet.

The good news coming out of this video is that InkSeine has been released privately within Microsoft for user testing and feedback, so there is hope that InkSeine may make it to our Tablet PCs one day.