A Typical Tablet PC Screenshot, showing a docked TIP from Tablet PC Edition 2005

Animation of the transition notebook to slate.

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Tablet PCs (39980)

A tablet PC is a notebook- or slate-shaped mobile computer. Its touch screen or digitizing tablet technology allows the user to operate the computer with a stylus or digital pen instead of a keyboard or mouse. more...

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The form factor offers a more mobile and productive way to interact with a computer. Tablet PCs are often used where normal notebooks are impractical or unwieldy, or do not provide the needed functionality.

Technology

The tablet PC is a culmination of advances in shrinking notebook hardware and improvements in integrated digitizers as methods of input. A digitizer is typically integrated with the screen, and correlates physical touch or digital pen interaction on the screen with the virtual information portrayed on it. A tablet's digitizer is an absolute pointing device rather than a relative pointing device like a mouse or touchpad. A target can be virtually interacted with directly at the point it appears on the screen.

Inputting data

A user can enter text using handwriting recognition, an on-screen (virtual) keyboard, speech recognition, or standard keyboard. Shorthand-like entry methods, which enable pen-driven input at speeds comparable to touch-typing, and are unique to the Tablet PC, include AlphaTap and Shark.

Tablet PCs using Windows XP Tablet PC Edition may utilize the Ink object as a means of data input and storage. This is a data type created as part of the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition API that allows one to manipulate and process handwritten data, including recognition results and, in some cases, the pressure information for each part of the stroke. Properties of Ink can be changed in much the same way as properties of other objects, and the data can be saved to allow future reference. Many applications referencing the Ink object also allow handwritten notes to be filtered and searched through, based on the recognition results stored when Ink is saved.

A popular use of the tablet PC form factor is to enable computerized manipulation, organization, and reading of large amounts of printed information. In particular, casual readers may download electronic versions of their favorite books to read on their tablet PCs, or students may scan in the pages of textbooks and just bring their tablet PCs to class in lieu of bulky textbooks.

Handwriting recognition

Modern day processors and advances in recognition algorithms make the conversion from handwriting to text far more practical now than it was in early attempts of tablet PCs.

Current handwriting recognition technology employed by tablet PCs focuses more on generic times recognition, rather than letter recognition. Each block of handwriting is compared to a dictionary of words. The word with the closest spelling to its primary guess of the written word is chosen, often with a list of alternatives presented to the user. On words in the dictionary, this method is more accurate than letter recognition. However, this becomes a problem for words not in the computer's dictionary, such as email and web addresses, new slang terms, and proper names. Handwriting recognition software often presents a letter recognizer option to better enable precise input.