Surface 2 & Stylus?

[bilzkh]

The Surface 2 will use Nvidia Tegra 4, and it so happens that Nvidia has the Tegra Note whereby it can run a passive capacitive stylus with palm blocking:

Hands-on: HP Slate7 Extreme - YouTube

Here's my hope, and with Microsoft it could go either way, Surface 2 could come with stylus support.

 

[DBDev]

That should be great!

 

[infinidim]

I think that the "palm blocking" is one of the most important feature. We have a couple of original Surface RT's here which we use with pens but the next generation should work much better.

 

[inteller]

hrm, it is still passive though so it is going to pale in comparison with the Pro. inking on that thing is amazing.

 

[bilzkh]

Well...it doesn't look like we're getting on-screen palm blocking, but there's hope.

The new Touch Cover tech (or 'Blades') has over 1000 touch pressure points, and Microsoft is looking to offer a series of Blades with different functions (e.g. Remix Project).

We might see a Blade/Cover with legitimate pen and inking capability. What Tegra Note offers is just palm block, what a "Write Cover" could offer is multiple pressure points on top of palm blocking, i.e. an active-digitizer like experience.

Now here's the thing. It wouldn't be enough to just have this blank cover. Sure, such a thing might be useful for creative professionals, effectively giving them a "Wacom on the go" like experience, but not for say a general professional. What a pro needs is a Touch Cover keyboard that doubles as a writing pad.

Imagine this. I am typing notes, and then suddenly I need to draw a diagram. Let's say I have this special stylus and I then bring it close to my Touch Cover...the backlight then forms around the outer rectangle, indicating that the 'keyboard' is now a pad, and I proceed. Granted this will need to be a new Cover, the keys need to be embedded in deeper and the layout altered slightly, but you get the gist. This could be a neat proposition.

 

[azcruz]

I posted on the Wacom Facebook page that should they come up with a Wacom Bamboo "blade" I will be their first customer.

I use the Wacom Bamboo pen right now with my Surface RT and it works well, but not as good as the experience the Bamboo offers.

 

[bilzkh]

I posted on the Wacom Facebook page that should they come up with a Wacom Bamboo "blade" I will be their first customer.

I use the Wacom Bamboo pen right now with my Surface RT and it works well, but not as good as the experience the Bamboo offers.

Great idea! Surface Pro/Pro 2 use Wacom, wouldn't surprise me if some ideas are floating around between MS and Wacom right now.

 

[Tronberry]

At this point, I wouldn't mind having a writing app that just had a "deadzone" square that I could drag around to be my palm blocker for the Surface RT.

 

[Dos101]

I posted on the Wacom Facebook page that should they come up with a Wacom Bamboo "blade" I will be their first customer.

I use the Wacom Bamboo pen right now with my Surface RT and it works well, but not as good as the experience the Bamboo offers.

I think if Microsoft is serious about Surface and Windows RT in general that licensing the blade tech out is a MUST. I would buy a Wacom blade in a heartbeat!

 

[HeavyHanded]

They need to convince AutoDesk to make an RT version of Sketchbook. And get Jot and Wacom to bring capacitive stylii to Windows RT.

 

[DBDev]

They need to convince AutoDesk to make an RT version of Sketchbook. And get Jot and Wacom to bring capacitive stylii to Windows RT.

We have sketchbook express :wink:

 

[HeavyHanded]

Yes. Sketchbook Express is OK. If they add a layer function it'd be sufficient. But AutoDesk is testing the waters to see if RT moves forward. I hope the new Surface makes a big splash. I'll put my money where my mouth is and buy one when it's announced.

 

[John Pe]

As a stylus fan, I find palm blocking / palm rejection to be a less than satisfactory solution to the challenge of designing a screen that works with both touch and stylus. Coming from a stylus-only Modbook tablet (a Macbook 3rd-party hardware customisation) which I happily run Windows on (lol!) and comparing it to my experience using a stylus on three different stylus+touch machines (Thinkpad, Galaxy Note 8, Vaio Duo), I find the stylus experience on the latter to be rather frustrating because I tend hold the stylus too high before my palm rests on the screen, thus triggering an unintended touch event.

There is A SIMPLER, EASIER SOLUTION (than palm rejection) that gets around this frustrating behavior which is to: disable touch when the stylus is removed from its slot, or even better, disable single touch (but keep multi-touches active so pinch to zoom still works!).

They can keep palm rejection for people who prefer it, but it should be very easy to create a toggle in a software options panel whether to rely on palm rejection or to have touch/single-touch disabled when the stylus has been pulled out and intended to be used.

 

[jMawl]

It has been brought up in other threads, but both Adonit and Wacom have Bluetooth enabled styli that give a similar experience to an active digitizer with only a capacitive touch screen (like the Surface 2). I e-mailed Adonit, and they are looking to add support for Surface 2. The only problem is that I think the functionality has to be written into specific apps so it would require buy in from Microsoft (One Note), Evernote, Autodesk, or any other companies that produce such apps. Other issue is that they are expensive ($75-100), but that isn't bad compared to what I assume a blade solution would cost.

 

[Vistaus]

Buy in from Microsoft? OneNote is free in my Windows Store (and I got OneNote 2013 free on the Surface 2 as well).

 

[Dos101]

Buy in from Microsoft? OneNote is free in my Windows Store (and I got OneNote 2013 free on the Surface 2 as well).

I think he means buy-in as meaning that Microsoft would need to update OneNote to support it. Maybe an Office add-in would do the trick though?

 

[jMawl]

I think he means buy-in as meaning that Microsoft would need to update OneNote support it. Maybe an Office add-in would do the trick though?

Yes. That is what I meant. They would have to update OneNote with that functionality...and it would be nice to include it in their other apps/software as well.

 

[pbankey]

Well...it doesn't look like we're getting on-screen palm blocking, but there's hope.

The new Touch Cover tech (or 'Blades') has over 1000 touch pressure points, and Microsoft is looking to offer a series of Blades with different functions (e.g. Remix Project).

We might see a Blade/Cover with legitimate pen and inking capability. What Tegra Note offers is just palm block, what a "Write Cover" could offer is multiple pressure points on top of palm blocking, i.e. an active-digitizer like experience.

Now here's the thing. It wouldn't be enough to just have this blank cover. Sure, such a thing might be useful for creative professionals, effectively giving them a "Wacom on the go" like experience, but not for say a general professional. What a pro needs is a Touch Cover keyboard that doubles as a writing pad.

Imagine this. I am typing notes, and then suddenly I need to draw a diagram. Let's say I have this special stylus and I then bring it close to my Touch Cover...the backlight then forms around the outer rectangle, indicating that the 'keyboard' is now a pad, and I proceed. Granted this will need to be a new Cover, the keys need to be embedded in deeper and the layout altered slightly, but you get the gist. This could be a neat proposition.

I'm thinking it might be cool if there was a completely translucent blade that connected to the surface that contained a digitizer pane, and when the cover is over the screen (like its protecting the screen), the blade turns on and you can use pen input and ink on the blade over the screen like you're writing on the actual tablet.

 

[JohnCz]

The only problem is that I think the functionality has to be written into specific apps so it would require buy in from Microsoft (One Note), Evernote, Autodesk, or any other companies that produce such apps.

Adonit would need to write a Windows HID (human interface driver) and for Surface 2 probably would need to recompile for Arm. Then all pen enabled apps would be able to take advantage of it.

 

[jMawl]

Adonit would need to write a Windows HID (human interface driver) and for Surface 2 probably would need to recompile for Arm. Then all pen enabled apps would be able to take advantage of it.

Well, when you say it that way, it sounds easy. Come on Adonit!