One year after Microsoft launched Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, the company has announced an interim edition of the operating system. The new version promises better integration of pen support, which should make it easier to create text anywhere within the OS and applications regardless of whether you have a convertible, slate or hybrid Tablet PC. There's also new tools in the Tablet PC SDK that enable developers to create pen-aware Web pages.

Tablet PC is being touted by Microsoft as the OS to power next-generation laptop PCs. Claiming that Tablet PCs are experiencing increasing support from all segments of the PC industry, Microsoft says that 40 companies are now designing and manufacturing Tablet PCs worldwide, and more than 120 are developing software that takes advantage of the pen capabilities in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. However, early purchases and deployments of Tablet PCs are in vertical markets, such as healthcare, financial services and education, and the platform has yet failed to prove itself to general business and consumer markets.

Key features of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2004 include enhanced 'ink-to-text' input, which promises to make inserting text a lot easier throughout the whole OS and compatible applications, thanks to the new Tablet PC Input Panel (TIP). Word and case recognition has also been improved and developers and users can now add 'rules' for how handwriting should be recognised in certain text fields, such as e-mail messages, addresses and URLs. Better support for Office 2003 and Office OneNote 2003 allows you to annotate anywhere in the latest versions of Word, Excel or PowerPoint 2003, and you can send handwritten e-mail messages in Outlook 2003.

The recently-announced Tablet PC Software Development Kit (SDK) version 1.7 enables software developers to add support for digital ink in Web-based applications. Microsoft hopes this SDK will help it to extend the reach of Tablet PC by encouraging developers to integrate pen-based computing into tasks that customers perform every day with a laptop PC.

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2004 is scheduled to be available by mid-2004. It will be available as a free upgrade for existing customers and will come pre-installed on new Tablet PC hardware systems.

Links:
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Web site

BIOS, Nov 21, 03 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Operating System