[NTLK] Remarkable that after all these years, Remarkable is partway there...

[Noah Leon]

Hi all,

Last year I met with the artist @Pinot (he does art on old apple computers, and he did one series on the Newton), for my film, who let me try his Remarkable (remarkable.com <http://remarkable.com/>) tablet. He told me that it is the most Newton-like device he has owned. It’s basically a simple e-ink device with a stylus designed to be as much like paper as possible, and to keep out social media and other distractions. Interesting concept, not quite as ambitious as the Newton was. I sent them a couple of messages asking them to incorporate some handwriting recognition, like the Newton. I thought it would be a good way to help push technology in that direction.

Well, I just saw a new advertisement for their tablet, and they have indeed included a simple whole-document handwriting recognition feature. It’s not as nice as the Newton’s word-by-word system, and not as natural as Myscript Nebo (which is the most Newton-like system I have found so far), but it is just one more way that technology is very slowly achieving the high concept software design that was the Newton OS. The Newton was revolutionary, but really what’s happening is a very slow evolution. It’s a welcome one. If the Remarkable was not quite so expensive, I would be tempted to ask my wife for one for Christmas. 

Long live Newton.

noah