Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

kickstarter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#61

Post by jvdongen »

nico_h wrote: post #36
Centigonal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should honestly consider purchasing a fountain pen. They work via capillary action, which means that they write on contact -- no pressure needed. At all. Some good starters are the LAMY Safari, the TWSBI 540, and the Kaweco Sport. All of these cost I, too, used to think gel pens were the bomb, but writing with a fountain pen is just something else. :D

Unless you're left-handed :-( Then you spend your time scratching and pushing against the paper and smudging your handwriting :-( If you're trying to do mirror writing they become awesome again, but that's not a frequent use case:-(

I'm a 'lefty' and write with a fountain pen using Parker's Quink - a fairly fast drying ink. Works remarkably well.

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#63

Post by rob_colluding »

kenrikm wrote: post #32
revelation wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to optimize it as the matter is out of their hand. Its just the delay for input events to go from hardware to kernel to user land. MS Research had a neat demo on this very topic some time ago. Edit: never mind, it seems they use their own hardware. In that case, it would be interesting to know if iOS allows fast raw access to the external periphery.

Lag = fail. Interesting since it seems they use the dock connector so you would assume that there would be minimal lag compared to say Bluetooth.

From Collusion: Hi All just in case didn't catch my reply, I'd like to direct your attention to what i posted elsewhere on hacker news:

Paraphrased from our Kickstarter page: Thanks to those that have identified an issue with our drawing video clips, they were shot with a high fps camera and included in our video at HALF SPEED. In response, our video will be adjusted to demonstrate the drawing at normal speed. Additionally, we have identified areas to further optimize our algorithms for you to ensure that any latency is fully minimized. You can consider drawing speed to be equivalent experience to the iPad touch interface; if not better. Cheers, Rob (CEO) Collusion

By the way we are now 'de lurking' as we have finally got some sleep after the marathon lead-up to the kickstarter launch - 53 hours and no kip is not pleasant! Feel free to ask us questions directly. There is a LOT of work going into Collusion to address many of the existing fundamental issues of pen on tablet computing (many raised right here on hacker news inc latency, accuracy, palm rejection etc) we kindly ask you do this before reaching for the nearest pitchfork:) Talk to us.

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#64

Post by alter8 »

jurre wrote: post #56
nirmal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked about the lag and they responded with this tweet. https://mobile.twitter.com/#!/collusionapp/status/2083668457...

https://twitter.com/collusionapp/status/208366845781221377 for those not on a mobile phone (it was asking me to log in on the mobile subdomain but I'm already logged in on my laptop)

The hashbang is the problem, just removing it also does the trick: http://mobile.twitter.com/collusionapp/status/20836684578122...

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#65

Post by rob_colluding »

From Collusion.

RE: The Pen Hardware. A few details (beats guessing eh?), we're working in partnership with Byzero of Korea with respect to the pen and receiver, and we are getting excellent results optimising hardware and software.

RE: Real world lag 'issues'as apposed to 1/2 speed video issues: We've publicly tested Collusion with about 100 people with a VERY early POC release - the same software as used in the video (which is now 3+ months old) very few commented on lag as being an issue - and that was with no serious attempt at lag optimisation on our software. As you can see some of these kind folk have come to our defence on this forum (thanks fellas). We are extremely anal about squeezing every last drop of performance out of our software and iOS for release to make using a pen on the iPad as good as it can be. We're confident that we're getting it right, and look forward to our next open invitation test catchup to show people first hand how Collusion is evolving, and yes we'll shove a video camera in there, and post links here:)

To those who have a problem with our name, we have dedicated a special FAQ just for you. See http://collusionapp.com/faq/#a1

Guys (that is an Australianism that includes all the female posters here too) - we recon we have the pen thing in hand - was that a pun (assume for a second it is)... there is a LOT of brainpower here (hacker news), please turn your attention to other things we are working on... please - its seriously cool stuff - if you think Collusion is just a note taking squiggly drawing app - look a little deeper.

I'll say this the pen is simply and enabling technology, a gateway to far far more interesting stuff. We know people fixate on the pen, and thats fine, but we think people once they have it, will stick will Collusion for what it does.

Final note, pen input on tablet is as important as a keyboard or mouse to a PC: Really important till the point where it 'just works' then hardly noticed thereafter. We've hardly noticed the pen for a while now;) You dont use your computer for the keyboard, and we've not built Collusion for the pen.

There are some big ideas in Collusion - we've updated our Kistarter page text to hint at them a bit more strongly. Please have a read.

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#66

Post by rob_colluding »

discordance wrote: post #16

I had a play with this and it's essentially a two dollar stylus that can also emit high frequency audio based on pressure, with the iPad attachment having a couple of mics in it to receive audio. This enables the stylus to transmit pressure levels as inaudible sounds, resulting in the ability to draw thin and thick lines. The software was ok, but the biggest problem is still that typical stylus lag on iOS. Not much y…

$2 Dollars! Can u send me the name of your supplier (off-line of course)- for every ultrasonic pen you can get at $2, I'll happily pay you $30+ and my right arm.. jokes asides (seriously the tech behind making the ultrasonic stuff work is heavily patented and expensive).

BTW the inking weight system has nothing to do with the inking state of the pen (which incidentally is Binary), (so the fact you couldn't tell i guess is a complement to Sumo) the transmission of which is IR not ultrasonic. Last thing, there is indeed plenty of latitude to address several aspects of laginess in iOS that arn't restricted, you just have to look for them, and be prepared to invest a lot of time. We know because we're doing it right now, and your right - it is early days, and thanks for the thumbs up - we are indeed coming up with something:)

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#67

Post by rob_colluding »

JetMan wrote: post #55
jstevens85 wrote: post #54

It seems odd that they would state that one of their cofounders "brings a degree in electronics and computing from M.I.T." when he in fact went to Manukau Institute of Technology.

They are either being dishonest or obtusely misleading - http://au.linkedin.com/in/navdeep2u

OMG someone is wrong on the interwebs. In this instance Jetman I'm biting. Full disclamer - Nav is my close friend and co-founder - so I'm honorbound in Aussie culture to say the following. If this were a pub and you were in Oz, we'd be stepping outside right about now. Since this is hacker news - I'll simply say the following:

Who knew, the world is indeed bigger than the US of A. I'm guessing you knew that before you posted such nasty stuff when you clicked on Nav's Linkedin page and saw that his degree was from Manukau Institue of Technology MIT NZ.

Costic & Willfully Dumb in one post - Jetman, please fly far, far away.

Nav earn't his degree, is working a full time job + doing about 35 hours a week on Collusion. We're busting our asses to build some very cool tech, and do care about our rep.

Frankly we're kind of stunned at the generally negative attitude on Y Combinator hacker news. We're in the same boat (startup), starved for our art for the last year, we built it, and were going to market. Give us a break. More so - give us your support.

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#68

Post by rob_colluding »

prawn wrote: post #19

Hard to know how far this will go to solving what people want in this type of product. The lag is pretty clear in the video - don't underestimate how much this will frustrate you in reality. Watch the scene where the student is writing very carefully just to form simple letters in a short word. In my experience, two things matter with styluses on the iPad - precision and responsiveness. With a view to replacing all t…

Hey Prawn,

You are making some very good points, sounds like you are particularly familiar with the issues at hand. RE the operahouse stuff - the student that did that were going for a 'ken done' look - very scribbly:) I'd say the pen performance when dealing with small detail is very decent - not Wacom Pro decent but not far off. Might org a video to show the performance. By the way we're drawing up a list of internal testers, can I interest you in trying out Collusion and telling us what you think?

Cheers,

Rob CEO - Collusion

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#69

Post by rob_colluding »

flyosity wrote: post #5

The video still shows a lot of lag between when the stylus touches the glass and the pixels in the app show the pen trail. This needs to be heavily optimized or else it will make their hardware a lot of engineering work for nothing and users won't be happy. At this stage, from the video, it looks to have similar latency as other existing iPad sketch apps and those have no hardware dongle or stylus (and cost $100 less…

erm, that might be because your still looking at the current video. New video to be uploaded in the morning, have a look then:)

Re: Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

#70

Post by rob_colluding »

rjsamson wrote: post #3

Neat product, but I think they lose a bit of credibility with this quote: "nobody's nailed how to make the iPad a compelling every day productivity tool" Really? Also, $139 seems like a bit high, but I could be wrong.

Hi, RJ let us get Collusion out the door:) or come try it at our next test event. My definition of 'nailing it' (my quote so i take responsibility for it) is to see people regularly using their iPads, in meetings, a lecture theater, or choose to use it over the laptop that they have sitting on their desk. I dont see that yet, not even close. I think that's a big hairy goal worth going after. Sincerely hoping to prove you wrong... just a little bit:)

As for the price - yes indeed it is expensive - this is new and quite complex tech (sporting the worlds fastest cloud collaboration system - as you could imagine is somewhat different to slapping it up on EC2. It should be expensive, as we're not building it on the cheap:) Given it adresses a gaping hole in the market for a lot of people who want to use the iPad as a primary productivity tool, I'd argue it is excellent value:)*takes off marketing hat.. Hope to win you over in the coming months. Keep an eye on us.

Cheers,

Rob, CEO Collusion.

Post reply on HN