I was invited to speak once again at the Interactive Displays Conference in San Jose, Calif. My presentation was scheduled for April 20 but, unfortunately, the aftermath of the Icelandic volcano eruption prevented my flying from France. Luckily, François Jeanneau, head of our North American operation and based in the Bay Area, was able to take my place.

The topic of his talk was "The Rise of Slate Computing", where François discussed the huge potential and benefits of this new generation of mobile computers and why multi-touch is a must have. He explained how this form factor is perfect for mobile, school or couch-computing – being transportable while offering enough surface area for proper content manipulation and viewing.

François told his audience, "It is the inexpensive device that allows you, your children or grandparents to take notes, sketch, play, watch movies or work on the fly, ready when you are."

But the specific form factor and usage, he added, requires an innovative input technology and raises hardware and software related questions. Hardware challenges include uncompromised handwriting and finger tracking, smart touch event discrimination (finger, object, palm, touch clusters), responsiveness (> 250 Hz), and touch performance characterization. Among the software challenges are new user-interface scenarios, handwriting real-time rendering, and cross-platform deployment.

Here is the presentation:

From all reports, the presentation was enthusiastically received. My thanks to François for a job well done.