In an article on ZDNet, Arimasa Naitoh, who is considered to be the father of the Thinkpad and is currently Lenovo’s worldwide VP of Development, was asked for his opinion regarding Origami. Naitoh had this to say:

When asked about the future prospects of Microsoft's "Origami" mini-tablet design, Naitoh was skeptical. "I'll have a hard time to convince myself that Origami will be a primary device," he said.

I’m glad Naitoh feels that way. I’d have a hard time convincing myself that an Origami will be a primary device as well, especially considering that it is not designed to be a primary device, and also considering that Microsoft and Intel are not marketing them to be primary devices. Origami’s are designed and specd to be companion devices. Overtime, we will also see the prices drop in the companion device range.

For more info on how Naitoh sees the Thinkpad evolving, issues of battery life, and more, check out the article on ZDNet.com

David Ciccone has in his hands what many of us have been waiting for in utlra mobile devices – an ultra mobile pc with a 16gb solid state flash hard drive. Although the drive is a bit small for my needs, it won’t be long before we start to see bigger drives, which means tremendous savings on battery life, speed, etc.

David has produced a video of the Sony Vaio UX-90S with the 16gb flash drive, along with comparisons to the UX180P.

Check it out

If you are a medical professional curious about Tablet PCs and the benefits of integrating them in to your practice, you need to take a listen to this Microsoft produced House Call podcast. In this episode, Dr. Bill Crounse, Healthcare Industry Director for Microsoft, talks with  the following guests:

• Joe French, vice president of health and life sciences group for Motion Computing
• Dr. Gerard Burns, director of medical informatics at Hackensack University Medical Center
• Dr. Brian McCardel, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan
• Darin Fish, director of business development for the mobile platforms division at Microsoft.

via MedicalTabletPC.com, image courtesy of Motion Computing

Looks like another level of Tablet PC functionality for Firefox users. The Mouse Gestures add-on allows you to navigate within your browser using common commands like page forward, page backward, close tab, new tab, with gestures created with a mouse. Tablet PC and UMPC users can do the same with their pen. Looks handy. I don’t have Firefox running at the moment, so if anyone tries this out report back on your findings.

Via jkOnTheRun

There has been some interesting discussion around the topic of voice recognition on a Tablet PC lately. First there was word about the new release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. (Marc Orchant takes a first look at the new version.) And then there was an apparent misfire of a demo of Vista’s voice recognition software at the recent analyst meeting in Redmond. (Chris Pirillo has linked to the YouTube video of that failure here.

This recent talk has left me pondering a bit about voice recognition and the Tablet PC. First, I think it keeps getting closer, but I don’t think it is there yet. Second, I really think to use it effectively you not only have to train and practice, (we all know that) but I think environmental conditions in your work environment need to be almost ideal. I tried some training over the weekend and the ambient noise from air conditioners (hey, it is too hot to turn them all off these days in our office) and even street sounds interfered quite a bit. Third, in my case, I need to get over the fact that it probably sounds a bit like I’m crazy sitting in my office talking to myself. Again, that’s tied to our small office environment.

But I’d love to hear from anyone who uses voice recognition in a more suitable environment. Our latest poll asks you a simple yes or not question: Do you use voice recognition on your Tablet PC? Vote and then leave a comment and tell us your experiences with voice recognition. If you’ve tried and given up, tell us that too. I think this can be a winning note-taking technology in the right environment, but it seems to be often overlooked when we discuss Tablet PCs. Is that because no one is taking advantage of it? Or is the technology just not there yet? 

Looking forward to hearing your responses.

July was a big month for InkShows here at GottaBeMobile.com. We covered a range of topics, including some new Tablet PC Software, and even had a topical interview or two. And of course, July was the month that we welcomed the support of our InkShow Sponsor, TechSmith Corporation. In case you missed any of the InkShow action this past month, here’s a rundown of who and what we covered. Enjoy! 

• Hardware InkShows
  • Toshiba M400 Tablet PC Review Dennis Rice reviews Toshiba’s latest Tablet PC.
• Software InkShows
  • Mapping Your Mind-Again! Dennis Rice takes a look at MindJet’s MindManager
  • BlueBeam Revu for the Tablet PC Rob Bushway uncovers a new pdf annotation tool for the Tablet PC
  • Tablet Enhancements for Outlook 3.0  Warner Crocker walks through Tablet Enhancements for Outlook 3.0
  • Vista and Tablet PCs-A Pen Flick Inkshow Rob Bushway explores Pen Flicks in Microsoft Vista.
• Accessory and Gadget InkShows
  • BlueParrot Bluetooth Headset Rob Bushway reviews the BlueParrot headset.
• Audio InkShows
  • Talking Tablet PCs with Eric Rice Warner Crocker talks with podcasting guru, Mac lover, and Tablet PC user Eric Rice.
  • GBM Exclusive Interview with TEO 3.0 Developer Josh Einstein Warner Crocker and Josh Einstein talk about this must have Tablet PC app on the eve of its release.
• InkShow Announcments
  • GottaBeMobile Welcomes TechSmith Corporation As An Official Sponsor

Get ready for more InkShows coming your way this month at GottaBeMobile.com. Leave a comment if there’s something you want to see or hear about in the Tabletscape.

All GottaBeMobile.com InkShows are sponsored by:

I’ve had a few questions on how to link MindManager topics to OneNote existing OneNote paragraphs.

This is taken from a post I made on my old blog and included it here for archival purposes.

I have verified that these steps still work.OneNote 2007 is required. If you have any problems with these steps, please post  back.

In this first installment of User InkReviews at GottaBeMobile.com, GBM reader Steve S takes an extensive look at xThink’s MathJournal 2.

As a daily user of MathJournal, Steve is well qualified to give us the inside story on MathJournal, what works, what still needs work, and how much improved MathJournal 2 is over MathJournal 1. Steve has his Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering and his Masters of Science in Gasdynamics from the University of Michigan. He uses MathJournal daily in his job in the technology and manufacturing business. Steve knows his math and he knows MathJournal inside and out. In addition, Steve is the top contributor to the xThink support forum at TabletPCBuzz.com.

• Read this User InkReview on MathJournal 2
• Visit xThink

Price:

NEW: MathJournal 2.0
Regular $249; Student $119

MathJournal Classic
Regular $149; Student $69

UPGRADE: from MathJournal Classic to MathJournal 2.0
Regular $100; Student $50

UPGRADE: from MathJournal 1.1 to MathJournal 2.0
Regular $69; Student $39

FREE UPGRADE for recent customers:
You can upgrade to MathJournal 2.0 for free, if you bought MathJournal 1.1 on or after June 1st, 2005.

Daniel Huss, of Associated Content, has written a great article for folks interested in buying their first Tablet PC. He covers the different types of Tablet PCs, software to trial, who could benefit from using a Tablet PC, and online resources.

It is a very good read for those of you in the market for your first Tablet PC.

In the world of portable computing, Tablet PCs aren't as widely used as they could be. Dominated by primarily laptops, tablets are seen as more of the expensive brother of the laptop mainly because of the special screen that laptops use to enable use of the pen. Besides the obvious "wow" factor for being able to write on the screen, which normally will throw people off if they are not expecting it. All types of people can get plenty of use out of a tablet PC besides the obvious business professionals. When shopping for a portable computer, There are a number of factors to consider when thinking about when purchasing a tablet PC, and each of these factors will dictate what kind portable you buy.

…Now, who can find a use for a tablet PC to warrant the extra cost? Anyone can find something to do with a tablet PC but the question is if the uses you find for it are worth the extra money. Tablet PCs tend to be advertised to students and business professionals and generally speaking they can find the most uses for them. Using a program called OneNote from Microsoft, you can take notes in meetings or during class in your own handwriting, sort the notes like you want to, and search all your notes even in your own handwriting. You can even record dictation right in OneNote to play back later. Now all of this has an obvious use to students and business people who can take notes for classes or meetings, mark to-do items, record lectures, and keep track of personal lives all in one place.

Hat tip to our regular anonymous news tipper!

Trevor Claiborne at The Student Tablet PC takes a look at two new Mindjet Labs add-ins for MindManager that each offer some unique functionality. The first add-in he reviews is the Route Planner add-in.

The Route Planner add-in is quite simple. All you do is put your starting point in one topic, your destination in another and add a relationship between them. You then right click on the relationship and click Get Route. A webpage launches to a Mindjet site with Virtual Earth embedded with a map and driving directions. In addition, a callout topic is created off of the relationship, which contains the directions (in the Notes field) and a hyperlink to the VE map.

This add-in is due to be released on 7/31 and I’m looking forward to giving it a try.

Available now is the second add-in Trevor reviews, The Presenter add-in. Similar to the audio-syncing feature in OneNote, it allows you to sync your audio to notes that you’ve taken in MindManager, but according to Trevor:

The only caveat here is while the audio and video link to your notes it doesn't work in the reverse. You won't be able to click on a topic and go directly to that part of the lecture, but as you replay your recordings, the notes you took will be highlighted as you move along, including panning and zooming.

Here’s the link to the Presenter add-in, and here’s a link to a MindMap Trevor created showing off both new add-ins. Note that you’ll need the presenter add-in to fully appreciate the synchronization feature.

Trevor, who is also now working at Google, also is looking for suggestions for new add-ins and extensions to MindManager. He’s offering up some Google swag to the top three entries on The Student Tablet PC.

The emotional draw in building a new house is that you get to avoid all the leaky faucet, broken pipes, cracked ceiling type of problems. For those of you who have built a new house, you know how far that is from reality. The warranty issues never seem to go away, the builders are constantly coming back in to fix stuff. This seems to go on for months on end. Help is on the way…

Latista Field Service, a software application built by Latista, is a package designed to improved construction quality control and warranty management. According to a their website, Latista Field Service is Tablet PC-based solution with an easy to use interface, digital camera support, punchlist management, translation of work-orders to Spanish, and business workflow management.

Next time you begin to look at building a new house, ask the builder what software application they are using to manage their quality control and warranty management.

via: PRNewsWire

Bob Heiny, the prolific education blogger at the Tablet PC Education blog, has posted a very interesting link to a pdf article  written by Chi N. Thai, University of Georgia, on using the Tablet PC in an extended classroom environment.

The paper was presented at the 2006 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education. In the paper, Thai goes over how they used Tablet PC technology to annotate PowerPoint slides and present real-time to students spread throughout the country and to Japan as well. To address band-width and traffic issues, they used the Totally Ordered Reliable Multicast (TORM) protocol.

Great reading for those interested in Tablet PCs and the solutions people are coming up with to solve the problems associated with remote learning and interactive participation.

Here is the abstract to Thai’s paper:

In this article from Todd Bishop’s blog on SeattlePI.com, Todd quotes Microsoft’s Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division, on how Microsoft sees the Zune fitting in to its media offerings. Read the quote and then jump down below for my comments:

Speaking to an audience of financial analysts, Bach had this to say:

"In the case of Apple, they have certainly an iMac business, they have their iPod business, and they've sold a few things into the home that compete with (Windows XP) Media Center, although the numbers there are actually quite small. Look at our business. We have a burgeoning IPTV business that we think is going to grow and be successful in the home. We have Media Center with over 14 million units and growing around the world. We have Xbox 360 in place and growing around the world. We have Xbox Live, MSN and our Windows Live initiatives. Put all of those things together and then take Zune and put it in the context of that. It enables us to complete the picture. It enables us to have the full entertainment, connected entertainment experience that we want to have."

Where is the mention of Origami or UMPC in that picture of devices and software creating a “connect with your media everywhere” scenario? Isn’t that the kind of thing that Origami is supposed to be helping to deliver as well – take some of your movies, your music, throw it in your purse and go. Watch TV via sling over your Origami. Put Vista on the Origami and it suddenly becomes a Media Center PC for goodness sakes: Now you have a Media Center PC in your purse. It is not a pocketable device, but that is where Zune comes in. Sync to it!

Zune and an Origami  – two ultra portable devices providing the ultimate in flexability and connectivity.

The Origami is a device that will help complete that entertainment picture, and is something that has been designed and marketed by Microsoft to do.  If Microsoft isn’t careful, consumers are going to get a little confused if they don’t see Origami in the picture from a marketing perspective. Warner posted some yesterday on this same issue.

 To leave that out of the picture is a bit puzzling to me.

Okay — I admit it. 

“I am a MindManager addict, and am not afraid to say it”.

Okay, I said it, but if there is a cure, I don’t want it.  Welcome to another MindManager InkShow! If you have been around GottaBeMobile.com for long, you may remember that one of the first InkShows we did was a quick intro to MindJet’s MindManager.  Remember the tire swing?  No?  Then you should go to this previous InkShow link and watch it.  Why you say?  Because it is a precursor to this InkShow, and they together will teach you a lot about this application.  There is some duplication, but not much.  I titled this one MindManager “Revisited”, because it contains another, more detailed look than the original one.  In the original, I talked a good bit about the actual process of using a mind mapping tool like MindManager, and spent just a bit of time on the Tablet PC functionality.  This time I went the other way.  I spent much more time talking about the how to on the Tablet PC than the mind mapping concept.

MindJet has done a great job on this product.  It is rich in Tablet PC support, and clearly shows a well thought out approach to adding tablet capability to an app that already existed and was successful in it’s own right.  The use of ink, gestures, object manipulating, sketching, etc., the list goes on.  In this InkShow, I try and hit it all a bit.  Give this a “look see”, and see how it all works, then download a trial and get addicted!

• Watch the InkShow (28:17 minutes, 62mb, .wmv streaming or direct download.).
• Download a free trial from MindJet corporation
• Watch the previous InkShow
  
  Price: $229-349 - 21 day trial available (educational discounts available as well)

Enjoy the show.

All GottaBeMobile.com InkShows are sponsored by:

I’m not sure if this is a first or not, but it may very well be and if it is not, it certainly is news to me. PCWorld’s latest list of Top Ultra-Portables actually includes a Tablet PC. That’s right. HP’s tc4400 convertible Tablet PC not only cracked the list but debuted at number two behind Lenovo’s X60 ultra-portable. As I said, I can’t remember any of the magazines including a Tablet PC in any of their ubiquitous best of lists, certainly not a list that looks at a larger class of machines like ultra-portables. Correct me, please, if I’m wrong here.