Goliath's Palm Pilot

From TIME Digital: A new take on the laptop shows promise for the future of portable computing

  • Aqcess Technologies's QBE (pronounced "cube") Personal Computing Tablet looks like a Palm Pilot for giants. Designed to combine the ease of use of a PDA with the power of a desktop computer, the QBE suggests what the future of portable computers might be. It also shows the difficulties of trying to make that future happen right now.

    The QBE is 14 x 10 x 1.6 inches, and the screen is almost as large as the tablet. Like the Palm PDA, you can use a stylus to enter text and to control the cursor by writing and tapping. The handwriting recognition is good, although out of habit I used Palm Graffiti strokes that the QBE couldn't recognize. It didn't always recognize my normal handwriting either, but I can't read my own handwriting half the time so I really can't complain.

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