November 08, 2005
Futuristic copy/paste feature I'd like to see
File this under "What I'd like to see in the future..."
As Tablets become thinner and thinner and more paper-like in terms of their size and feel I see myself wanting to use three, four or more Tablets at a time. And very importantly I'll want to shuffle information from one to the other very easily.
Along these lines I've been wondering if it'd be useful for Tablets to know where other Tablets are in relation to one another. The question is: If each Tablet has a radio built in can they triangulate their relative positions?
If the Tablets could tell each other's location, it might make for some interesting user interface features. For instance, on a copy/paste you might be able to drag the source with the pen to the edge of the screen towards the target Tablet. A pop-up view of the second Tablet might appear in which you could drop the content. If you want to copy the contents to a Tablet in another direction, you'd simply drag the contents in that direction.
No configuration. Just copy/paste between Tablets.
This would really make ShareKMC sing.
Posted by Loren at November 8, 2005 08:42 AMThis is exactly the idea behind Stitching.
http://www.patrickbaudisch.com/projects/stitching/index.html
Baudisch has set up prototypes that can connect both Tablet PCs and Pocket PCs.
Posted by: Stephen Jennings on November 8, 2005 01:16 PMInstead of "copy", perhaps call it a "fling" operation / gesture.
Posted by: Stephan Hodges on November 8, 2005 06:04 PMThanks for the link! Stitching might be a better approach in the copy/paste scenario.
I wonder though about what else might be feasible (besides "stitched copy/paste") if Tablets could determine relative positions directly. For instance, what if each has one or more cameras and the group of Tablets is able to fuse the image data together in some meaningful way.
Posted by: Loren Heiny on November 8, 2005 11:48 PM