I’m happy to announce that Microsoft Research has a great new release of the InkSeine application ready for Tablet PC and UMPC devices. InkSeine is a prototype ink application designed from the ground up to have a user interface uniquely tailored to pen input. InkSeine is recommended for Windows Vista for the best experience, but will not work on Vista Home Basic, since there is no tablet pc support in that version of the OS. The public release is scheduled for February 15th, so if you’re a happy tabletter, be ready for a superb new experience :)
“InkSeine is a Tablet PC note-taking application designed and built from ground up around the pen, with the ability to easily search the web or your local computer directly from your ink. The search interface is unlike anything I’ve ever worked with in the past, with the ability to narrow or expand the results based on file type or date with a simple flick of the pen. It is such a joy to use an application where the box was built around the pen rather than making the pen fit the box. As such, InkSeine is quickly becoming my go-to application for ink note-taking.” - Dixit Rob Bushway, and I cannot put it in better words.
The team has put a demo online, which I’ll embed here below so you can have an idea of what InkSeine really does, and how easy it is to use.
Video: InkSeine from Microsoft Research - The Official Video
What’s new in this release?
- Improved Handwriting Recognition & Correction
- Titles for files & hyperlinks
- Tool Ring & Snapshot capture improvements
- Automatic hyperlinks
- Page enhancements
- Ink Cut & Paste
- Radial menus enhancements
- Customize the InkSeine user interface to your device
- Support for UMPC device resolutions (800×480 or 480×800)
- New File Type Filters
- System clipboard support
- Improved scrolling response
- Reorganized menus and simplified selection model
- InkSeine (.iks) files are now automatically indexed under Vista
- Printing & Send to OneNote smoothened
- Drag the Arc tool
- Auto Recovery updated
- Auto Update
Here’s an example of what you can do with InkSeine if you play around with it for a little while. It kinda shows a bunch of the new features already:
If you want to stay on track with the development, follow the blog of Ken Hinckley.
