"For years, William H. Gates III and Warren E. Buffett have routinely mailed each other magazine articles that have caught their eye. They rip pieces out of the magazines, jot notes in the margins, and pop them in the mail. "

For some reason, I was absolutely astounded to find that Gates was still reading printed magazines. This from a guy who supposedly mounted a bunch of flat-screen monitors on his walls to display art electronically?

Posted by: Mike on November 4, 2002 09:28 AM

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"For some reason, I was absolutely astounded to find that Gates was still reading printed magazines."

I'm not surprised at all. I do not know any person who has totally given up on paper. If nothing else, even if you give up print magazines, others still might pass them along to you. And, you are still exposed, from the supermarket to the doctor's office. Also, in the case you reference above, I'd bet that Buffet is really stuck on paper. He is probably doing most of the feeding to Bill, not the other way around. My guess is that Gates keeps pushing technology on Buffet.

For what it is worth, it put a big smile on my fact to think that these two billionaires are acting like little old ladies cutting out coupons for each other, or sharing recipes. "Betty, you'll just love this almond butter cake!" or "Oh Gertrude, you are so wonderful, you simply must give this new pear sauce a try with your sister's dumplings."

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on November 4, 2002 09:55 AM

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So if any MS company information slips out, does that count as insider trading?

Posted by: JB on November 4, 2002 10:52 AM

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I have yet to see the tablet in person, but after reading the Business Week article, I'm thinking about saving up to buy one. I have to admit, the fact that it's Windows-based and will run my apps right out of the box (so to speak) is very appealing.

There's one thing that's missing, however, that would make this a true killer device. More than the Word doc file format, PDF is becoming the universal medium for transferring documents back and forth. If they were smart and weren't enmeshed in their "not invented here" syndrome, Microsoft would include a modified version of Adobe Distiller that would create PDFs easily and simply. Build in some kind of functionality that lets you create "live" PDF forms for people to fill out and you've got a real winner.

PDF. Not doc.

Posted by: Michael Rubin on November 4, 2002 11:51 AM

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Well, I tried one of those Acer tablet computers and was astounded to find that the thing still does not use a word-predicting onscreen keyboard, a technology I was using on the Grid Convertible ten full years ago. User-hostile as ever, also clueless, cruel, and inaccessible. (Even a quadriplegic can write quite rapidly with a word-predicting onscreen keyboard; using nothing but a stylus effectively renders you a quadriplegic. This is the best Microsoft can do?)

Posted by: Joe Clark on November 5, 2002 04:49 PM

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Dont' bet against MS. They're famous for their persistence (remember the proverb "MS gets it right 3rd time"). They're planning for the long haul - keeping the engineering team small signalled that they wanted mainly to generate ideas and wait for the right combination of ideas and technologies (e.g. low-consumption chips) before moving to production. And there appear already to be at a few ready-made niche market - those lawyers who all want one, plus all senior executives who'll want to see why Bill Gates is already using the technology.

As for pens vs keyboards and mice, I don't see that there's a problem. Keyboards have 1 big disadvantage, their size, while pens can operate in a much smaller area - all you need is automated scrolling of the input area. And to get round the difficulty of double clicking, put mouse buttons on the side of the pen and make the software assume the clicks are received by whatever object the pen point touched last.

It will be a case of horses for courses. If you want to write a report while travelling in a plane / train, use a lap-top. If you want compactness and real portability (e.g. for stock checks) use a portable computer with a small numeric-only keypad and a pen for very brief notes.

Posted by: philip chalmers on November 12, 2002 12:02 PM

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