Paper view

Mon Jun-12-2006

Say "Paper view" and someone will think you have a subscription to movies on cable TV. But this little screed is about some of the key developments in putting your thoughts into writing.

When the Sumerians invented writing they poked sticks into clay tablets. Over the eons, we have tried all kinds of devices to picture or describe our ideas, including the feathers of birds, the quills of porcupines, nibs, balls and wicks, and we've committed our thoughts to materials ranging from stone and mud to reeds, paper, magnetic iron oxide and the sides of boxcars.

In the latest turnabout, we see that perhaps the ancients had something with their tablets after all. The tablet computer, upon which you can write with a stylus, is increasingly popular with students because you can noiselessly take notes in class and have them converted to regular (legible) type. Of course, if the tablet is wireless, you can also play games, check your email or chat with a colleague, especially if you arrive early enough at the lecture hall to sit at the back of the class.

Is paper on the way out? Save a tree, use only recycled electrons? Perhaps. But paper itself is evolving. Electronic paper will allow you to carry around a book that has one or more sheets on which the contents can be changed by plugging it into a computer (or receiving updates wirelessly). It looks like a book, feels like a book and reads like a book, but, unlike a book, has no permanent content. Of course, your dog can still chew up the cover.

For those of us who are more into writing than reading, there is the digital pen. This is not a tablet computer but rather a mouse pad on which you write, and the pen itself acts as very precise mouse. It is available for ordinary computers, and relatively inexpensive.

The tablet computer itself now comes in many formats, supporting different needs. The days of pharmacists trying to decipher the scribblings of physicians are fast coming to an end.

If you are running Windows XP, you can install Handwriting Recognition and use your mouse (a struggle, I think) or one of the digital pens or styli to write your words into your computer. But why bother? You can talk to your computer using Speech Recognition, and avoid writer's cramp.

And for the fun of it, why not paint with a device that picks up its textures and colors from its environment itself? Remember, if you can't have style, at least have stylus.