It’s Friday morning and that means it’s the end of another week at Mobile Tech Manor. It’s been a week of bittersweet happenings here in the Kendrick household, and I’ll share that with you. I am not writing this column as usual, I am actually dictating it. My renewed interest in dictation was triggered by a fair bit of time I spent with the Tablet PC. Join me in Mobile Tech Manor and I’ll share my week with you.
Personal affairs
I don’t often get into personal things in this column but a bittersweet event played a large role in how I’ve spent my time. As I tweeted last weekend, my adult stepson told his mom and I that he has a drug addiction problem. It was quite surprising to us, but he admits he has been addicted to prescription drugs for several years. Last Sunday, he checked himself into a rehabilitation program in Houston. Needless to say, the week was very unusual for us all here at home.
As I mentioned on Twitter, we find it very positive that he has recognized the problem and is taking steps to seek help. At the same time, it’s hard to know that your child, no matter how old, is going through a terrible time. I would like to thank the many people who expressed their good wishes for him on Twitter, it truly does help in this difficult time. Those wishing to follow me on Twitter, by the way, can do so by following @jkendrick.
Of pen and slate
This week I spent a lot of time using the ThinkPad tablet PC. I found myself using the pen quite a bit, and I must admit it was refreshing to get back to inking on the slate. I have been using the ThinkPad x200 quite a bit, but primarily in either laptop mode or in slate mode via touch. This week I spent a fair bit of time inking, and it felt darn good. My renewed interest in inking was timely due to the information that Apple had filed a patent for handwriting recognition (HWR) technology. I am not familiar with Apple’s claims, but I can tell you that the Microsoft handwriting recognition in Windows 7 is outstanding.
Apple will have a long road to travel to catch up to the Windows 7 handwriting recognition, of that I am certain. HWR is a tremendously complex technical problem, and I can state with confidence that the Microsoft solution is very solid. What Apple will realize, if they intend to pursue HWR for their upcoming tablet, is that HWR is a multi-faceted problem to solve. It’s complicated enough trying to interpret ink strokes with a pen, as each one of us writes uniquely. The strokes have to be converted into text, which adds to the complexity of the problem. On top of that, and an area where the Windows solution excels, the system interface must provide an intuitive method for inputting the ink, grabbling it and interfacing it with whatever program might need the ink input. The Tablet Input Panel (TIP) is an elegant solution to the latter, and Apple better be thinking along those lines.
Free speech
All of the time with the tablet this week got me thinking about speech recognition. It was a natural progression, as originally the Windows speech reco was only present on Tablet PCs. Windows Vista incorporated it into the OS, and quite well I might add, although most users overlooked it entirely. I realized that I had not checked to see if the speech stuff was in Windows 7, and was happy to find it still there.
I am happy to report that the reco in Windows 7 is the same as it was in Vista, and that it is still pretty darn good. Getting started with speech in Win 7 is easy to do, it’s found in the Control Panel. Once the microphone setup is done everything works well. You can control the OS entirely by voice if desired, which is explained thoroughly through the speech tutorial.
The real strength of speech reco lies in dictation, and this entire column has been entered via speech. The reco is robust enough that while it is better to use a proper headset with microphone, I did this using the internal microphone of the MacBook. Yes, I said MacBook. I was very satisfied to see that the speech stuff worked well in Windows 7, even running under Parallels Desktop on the Mac. I had to take no extra steps to use it, just started it under Windows 7 and got busy. The reco engine is quite accurate, and dictating a long article such as this was fun and easy. I highly recommend that Windows 7 users give speech a try no matter what system you’re running. You will likely find it incredibly useful and have a good time using it.
Browser update
Apple updated the Safari browser this week, so that meant I had to give it a try again. I’ve mentioned my frequent bouts of browser infidelity, and I jumped from Firefox to Safari again this week. It’s not just that I am fickle about my browser, it’s that I spend all day every day inside the browser doing my work. I am always checking to see which browser is faster, as even small speed gains make a huge difference to me over the course of an average work day.
I was surprised to find that the new version of Safari is slightly faster at most tasks than Firefox. I have been using Safari for a couple of days exclusively now and am pleased with the speed gain. I suppose I will be until Firefox is updated again, then I’ll likely switch back, as I love my Firefox.
I wish that Apple would include an option in Safari to open multiple sites at once. There are ways to do this manually, but I’d like to open the same web sites at start time automatically.
Pixi for free?
Palm hasn’t even launched the Pixi yet and it is already having big price reductions. This can’t be good for Palm, a company not in the best of shape financially. The Pixi was already going to be much cheaper than the Pre at launch, yet word appeared just yesterday that Walmart is offering the Pixi for $30 with a new contract on Sprint, and the phone is not out yet. That’s a price drop of 70 percent over the low Palm price. That doesn’t bode well for Palm or the Pixi, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it offered free soon.
Random musings
I ran across a few things this week that made me stop and think. Apple opened a new retail store and invited the press in for a “preview”. What’s that all about? Previewing what is just another store in the chain? The fact that opening a new store is worthy of being a press event is amusing, but even more amazing is that a bunch of the press actually attended the preview. Give me a break, it’s a freaking store, not a breaking news story.
I have been saying that the line between feature phones and smartphones was blurring, and I overheard something this week that proved it. I heard someone say that “I don’t need the Internet on my phone, I just need email, Twitter and Facebook.” Think about that statement for a moment. This was obviously stated by a non-techie, someone who just wants a phone. Not a super phone, not a smartphone, or even a feature phone. Just a phone, and it has to do those three things, in addition to make phone calls and probably texting.
That was a significant moment for me, realizing that “regular” people are now beginning to feel that “email, Twitter and Facebook” are phone functions. Not the Internet, the phone. That is a major shift in perceptions of phones of the consumer, and it leads me to believe that soon all phones will have to be “smart”. It’s a game changer.
e-Books of the week
This week I continued the kick I’ve been on lately and read an old Stephen King book — Rose Madder. It is a good story, well told as all of King’s stories tend to be. I’ve also been following my friend Jeff Kirvin’s mad dash to write his novels. He’s sharing his “mad novelist” thoughts on his blog, and he’s tweeting about his progress all the time. Continued good luck to Jeff, and if you wish to follow a true mad novelist, check in with his work from time to time. I’ve read his past work and find it to be quite good, so I’m looking forward to his new work.
That’s a wrap
That was my week, and as always I enjoy sharing it with you. Tune in next week for the next Mobile Tech Manor column, same bat time, same bat channel.
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