If you own a Tablet or UMPC and you’re like me, you’re constantly looking for new apps that take full advantage of its unique interface and capabilities. Last weekend I came across a killer app in development by the guys over at Microsoft Research.
Inkseine introduces a gesture-based UI, which reduces screen clutter and makes the app just plain fun to use. It also includes a few unique features. My favorite: you can highlight handwritten text and use it to search any document on your computer (or search the web), then open it for viewing or hyperlink it into your notes for easy access later. Inkseine also has a handy widget for taking clippings and pasting them directly into your notes, like a streamlined version of Snipping Tool.
Naturally as soon as I downloaded it I went straight to planning a D&D campaign. First I sketched out a couple of regional and dungeon maps. After adding some annotations, I hyperlinked the dungeon maps to the regional maps using the search feature. I have all my D&D books in PDF format so I used the search tool to look up the monsters and traps I intended to use, then took snapshots of them and pasted them right into the notes for easy access. I have the whole adventure planned out with everything at the tip of my stylus, and anything I forgot to paste into the notes I can easily search for mid-session without digging through a stack of books. Freakin’ sweet.
I could go on about the things you can do with Inkseine, but I’ll let you check out the features yourself over at its page at Microsoft Research.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Wow, now I want a tablet PC to play with!
July 29th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I want one now TOO!!!!
What kind of price tag does this thing carry?
July 30th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Low range UMPCs and tablets go for under 800 bucks these days. I saw a nice Samsung UM at Frys Electronics in Phoenix for around that range. For a higher resolution screen and the bells and whistles expect to pay quite a bit more. The Toshiba M200 in the demo video on the Inkseine website ran about $2800 fully loaded when it was released four or five years ago, and the recently announced Modbook - the first (third party) Macbook in tablet format - runs above $3000.
It really depends on your needs; I went with the M200 for its high res screen and pressure sensitivity because I use it for art, but for simpler applications more affordable models are adequate, and UMPCs are really ideal for a variety of purposes.