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Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

wired.com

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Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#21

Post by ypeterholmes »

Mistaken premise here in my opinion:

Think about typing the character ‘a’ on a keyboard. Fast, right? Just the one keystroke. “It is fast,” Bathiche says, “if you make some certain assumptions. That the position of the letter ‘a’ is where you intended it to be, the font is the way you intended it to be, the size of the ‘a’ is what you intended it to be.” All those decisions are made before you hit the key, and you often don’t have a choice. “But with ink, you can dictate all those things, almost simultaneously as you’re writing. I can put my ‘a’ here, or here, and I can make it as big as I want, as hard as I want.”

I can type wayyy faster than I can write with a pen.

So... yeah

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#22

Post by gohrt »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #21

Mistaken premise here in my opinion: Think about typing the character ‘a’ on a keyboard. Fast, right? Just the one keystroke. “It is fast,” Bathiche says, “if you make some certain assumptions. That the position of the letter ‘a’ is where you intended it to be, the font is the way you intended it to be, the size of the ‘a’ is what you intended it to be.” All those decisions are made before you hit the key, and you of…

If you don't care about font and style, yes. But if the "markup" is high relative to the character count, pens win.

This is also a pronounced issue in information graphics -- the off-the-shelf stuff in Excel etc is quite limited; you can do a custom visual a lot better, easier, with a custom drawing, what is impossible or ungainly in a "smart" diagramming program.

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#23

Post by jm_l »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #21

Mistaken premise here in my opinion: Think about typing the character ‘a’ on a keyboard. Fast, right? Just the one keystroke. “It is fast,” Bathiche says, “if you make some certain assumptions. That the position of the letter ‘a’ is where you intended it to be, the font is the way you intended it to be, the size of the ‘a’ is what you intended it to be.” All those decisions are made before you hit the key, and you of…

His thought here resonates with me though, particularly when I'm taking the kind of notes that involve diagrams, I find that using the space I'm given exactly how I want it, whether to draw boxes with big symbols, simple graphs or sketches, is a lot quicker on paper with a pen or pencil than on a computer using a keyboard. I'm a pretty fast typer and a writer so I'll admit that there is probably some person whose speed difference is so large that this really isn't helpful, but mostly what takes up time if I want to type like a write is using the mouse to select my font size and type, click the button that tells the word processor I want to draw boxes or arrows and then drawing those boxes and arrows.

Also importantly, he admits there are many cases where you really just need a keyboard (writing a long paper, composing a tweet or comment) but I think he's right that there's also many where you really need a pen.

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#24

Post by fizx »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #21

Mistaken premise here in my opinion: Think about typing the character ‘a’ on a keyboard. Fast, right? Just the one keystroke. “It is fast,” Bathiche says, “if you make some certain assumptions. That the position of the letter ‘a’ is where you intended it to be, the font is the way you intended it to be, the size of the ‘a’ is what you intended it to be.” All those decisions are made before you hit the key, and you of…

Can you type LaTeX faster than you can write equations on a chalkboard? I can't.

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#25

Post by dlsx »

Wired and Microsoft... 2 dead companies with bad ideas collaborating on a get hype for pens piece. Can I just say, kek. Microsoft and it's team of "brilliant patent holding geniuses" are tired. I would rather invest in 2 random kids in a garage that think pens are stupid. Or buy the latest macbook, the space grey is more innovative than anything these group of troglodytes and their cronies will ever produce.

Plastics!

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#26

Post by bsder »

oldmanjay wrote: post #19
bsder wrote: post #9

> he’s built a computer with almost zero latency—when you do something, the computer reacts instantly. Oh, the irony. It's Microsoft's own fault in the first place that we have an operating system that is so horribly unresponsive. And, now, umpteen years later, it's a BIG ADVANCE that we actually make computers do what we want, when we want. Just like before Microsoft.

That's almost laughably incorrect, although unfortunately popular amongst a certain segment of the tech set. The nearly-impossible-to-use computers that did very little very slowly back in the 80s (and earlier) were not nearly as amazing as your memory is fooling you into believing. Sure, nearly-bare-metal OSes don't soak up much in the way of resources, but that only works in very narrow market segments, and compute…

> Sure, nearly-bare-metal OSes don't soak up much in the way of resources, but that only works in very narrow market segments, and computers are totally mass market now.

And we had Amiga. And BeOS. And Plan9.

All of which had very good latency. All of which Microsoft displaced with monopolist behavior and marketing money.

Microsoft is only interested in fixing the problems they caused now that they aren't the 800lb gorilla anymore.

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#27

Post by JetSpiegel »

fizx wrote: post #24
ypeterholmes wrote: post #21

Mistaken premise here in my opinion: Think about typing the character ‘a’ on a keyboard. Fast, right? Just the one keystroke. “It is fast,” Bathiche says, “if you make some certain assumptions. That the position of the letter ‘a’ is where you intended it to be, the font is the way you intended it to be, the size of the ‘a’ is what you intended it to be.” All those decisions are made before you hit the key, and you of…

Can you type LaTeX faster than you can write equations on a chalkboard? I can't.

I can, if I want to make sure I (or anyone) can read it back.

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#28

Post by Animats »

"He’s built a computer with almost zero latency—when you do something, the computer reacts instantly. Here, Bathiche has solved that infuriating problem where you write or draw on a screen, and the ink is always a half-second behind your finger."

So few people get that. Alan Kay once wrote in the 1970s that it was as unacceptable for there to be a delay between user action and response on a computer as it was unacceptable on a piano. Now we have several gigaflops on every desktop and still can't get that right.

We really need this in web browsers. Especially on phones. When you click or touch something, something should happen right now, even if more will happen later. Touch a link in Firefox for Android and see what happens, or rather what doesn't happen.

Re: Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback

#29

Post by lelandbatey »

fizx wrote: post #24
ypeterholmes wrote: post #21

Mistaken premise here in my opinion: Think about typing the character ‘a’ on a keyboard. Fast, right? Just the one keystroke. “It is fast,” Bathiche says, “if you make some certain assumptions. That the position of the letter ‘a’ is where you intended it to be, the font is the way you intended it to be, the size of the ‘a’ is what you intended it to be.” All those decisions are made before you hit the key, and you of…

Can you type LaTeX faster than you can write equations on a chalkboard? I can't.

Exactly, it's why I still reach for a pen and pad if I know I'll have to take notes on something remotely more complex than just text. The worst feeling is to be busily typing notes only to realize you could clarify something by drawing a couple arrows or circling something.

Also, no digital task list has ever been able to replicate the satisfaction for me of writing out a to-do list with checkboxes and checking them off as I complete each task.

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