Notion Ink Adam to include Digitizer?

This is the most exciting development from my perspective after the initial weekend special X post. It would blow my mind if the Adam was to include an active digitizer.

This was recently posted on the Notion Ink Blog as a Comment and you can see Rohan's reponse below:

Aravind said, on November 30, 2010 at 17:07

i am absolutely convinced that the adam has a digitizer. ok maybe it’s partly wishful thinking, because that’s one feature that i would love to have. capacitive touch screens are great but pen-based input does have some awesome applications, so combining both would be awesome. please please please let there be a digitizer!

Reply

• Rohan Shravan said, on November 30, 2010 at 17:51

  

  
  

Following the comments above the discussion lead to the following...

• Jai said, on November 30, 2010 at 19:11

  Is it? In that case, wouldn’t that link the digitizer, induction, tesla and his broad smile now?

  Reply
• Pratik said, on November 30, 2010 at 19:12

  ^
  http://www.wacom-components.com/english/technology/emr.html

In his latest blog Rohan comments

“Things are changing because of “touch environments” as we can see in applications, but to see how you can interact with wireless technology is yet to come,”

If we break this down, essentially he is saying that touch environments have so far been integrated in to applications themselves but how do you use wireless technology to interact?

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Notion Ink Adam FAQ

There have been a lot of questions asked about the Adam, I thought I would take some time and put them in a single place so people do not have to dig through 100s of comments

This is currently just a draft. If you have anymore questions that should be added then please add them to the comments!

Q:Has the Adam been submitted to the FCC?

A: On the 24th Nov 2010 the FCC received an application from Notion Ink but it is not clear for what however it is believed to be for the Adam. (Rohan hints in Weekend Special X that previous observations mentioned in my FCC related blog post by me/others on the blog are correct!)

Q:will the mail program support PGP encryption?

A: Yes

Q:Will the Adam support CPU Hot Plug?

A:Yes

Q: What Apps will come with the Adam?

A: Initially there will be 20 Apps, to name a few: Mail'd , Calendar, Office Suite, Sniffer (File Manager). You can learn more about those Apps in: Weekend Special IX

Q: What languages and file formats will be supported?

A: The Office suite supports 35 Languages, all major formats (including docx, pptx, pdf, etc) and zip files as well.

Q: Will the Adam Support Flash?

A: Yes - it will come bundled with Flash and support Adobe AIR

Q: Will the screen be Gloss or Matte?

A: Matte

Q: Will the Adam have an Active Digitizer?

A: At this point in time it does not seem to be the case, however from Rohans Blog, Which shows a canvas done by hand, Which seems to be very accurate.

Q:Will there be a trackpad at the back?

A: This answer is a rumour and not confirmed by Rohan, however it seems the design of a trackpad at the back has already been patented and may not be included. (requires further clarification from Rohan).

UPDATE: The Adam will ship with a rear trackpad however it will not be activated initally due to performance concerns (source: Rohan Shravan interview on Androidheadlines.com)

Q:What is the Bonus Mystery Feature?

A: Rohan has given strong hints that this will be something to do with Nikola Tesla and 3d Interfaces. see: Weekend Special X

Q:Will the Bezel stay as it is now? Why has it changed?

A: Yes - As explained in an earlier blog post

"the reason of still having it (bezel) is the USBs and other I/O peripherals. We have spent a lot of resources and have more than 9 patents on the same (to reduce it)! But the fabs and vendors need to upgrade to accomplish what we want(essentially Adam 2 )"

Q:How many keyboard types will there be?

A: There will be 4 virtual keyboard variants.

Q: Does Rohan Shravan sleep?

A:

Rohan Shravan said, on November 29, 2010 at 11:50

I do, when there are no comments!

Q:Why are there no Indian Applicants in EAP1?

A: As Rohan Explains

"EAP was multi pronged test for us. Production Validation, Logistics (handling shipments, etc. for so many countries), test of the support system, work on the feedback before it reaches masses (ones which we can quickly fix) and sending out messages to all that we have arrived!"

I would appreciate it if the community could help me improve and add to this.

Notion Ink Adam - Secret Feature - Hint II

My thoughts about Rohan's most latest post onthe Notion Ink Blog!

The first Hint “Meeting with Nikolas Tesla in Missouri on 10th July 1856 : High Priority” confirming that indeed the clue on the homepage does relate to Tesla and his birthday! I got as far is seeing it as a timestamp but never considered that it could be a date of birth.

The key to this post "(but not rushing by releasing sub-standard products, we are here to stay for centuries)"

I agree with Rohan, This is about building a long term business and not rushing out a product in order to capitalise on one holiday season when you have many many more. I'm very proud of the fact that you are sticking to your guns and not giving in to the pressure.

People need to understand that with Investors involved this is just as much about ensuring they are happy and continue to back you and at the same time providing your users with what they want. It is a tough balancing act.

The thought behind the Calendar seems sound and initially it seems very simple + optimised for the touch experience, but to me it seems too crowded, with that much information on screen? It maybe an idea to seperate it in to two dialogues, One detailing the event and the seccond detailing the time/reminders you would like to set.

The second hint is a good one. Apple's 3d Touch can be seen here! "http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/05/apple-patent-application-points-to-3d-multi-touch-manipulation/" It combines well with the IR Theory and using the Camera for depth perception. Love the thought if it and can't wait to see the implementation.

Finally, I'm with Prakhyat Singh on this, I'm in awe of NI, how far out of the box their thinking is and how much imagination this device is using. I would like to encourage them to keep going! The Adam was originally my addiction and now its the story. The story of Notion Ink.

Notion Ink's Riddle Explained - "-D5720A80″ Bonus Feature

After many hours of discussion and debate it seems the Bonus Features could be an IR Sensor. A commenter by the name of "wtff" explains on the Notion Ink Blog

Linking the riddle to the Hex number:

"Concerning the riddle about the hex number (“-D5720A80″:

There seems to be a quite some speculation about it going on, despite the fact that it has been pointed out, that – interpreted as a unix timestamp – the number resolves to Tesla’s birthday.
First of all: congratulation to those who resolved the riddle or took a part in it. Good work!
I meant to add that to my mind, we can all rest assured that the timestamp interpretation is the correct one. The fact that the timestamp resolves into a GMT date ending in 00:00:00 is already evidence enough for the hex number being a nix timestamp. The additional fact that this timestamp coincides with Teslas birthday just casts this theory into bronze.
Further speculations about FCC codes seem reasonable to me only under the assumption that a grantee can choose his own EPC code but I don’t think this is possible.

So, Tesla it is then."

Possible use cases:

"There is a lot to be had for little money from a simple set of IR emitter/receiver:

- as you decribed: infrared imaging at night, or the fotographic effect of altering daylight images by incorporating the infrared spectrum

- a universal remote control for TV / hifi equipment

- measuring distances
a ) for supplication of camery images with depth information, in order to achieve kinect-like game control
b) for actual distance measurement between a reference point on the adam and an object

all this and more can be realized by one and the same set of equipment and the price for that is LOW! Just an IR diode and a webcam that is there anyway. (It is usual for photographic sensors to be sensitive to the IR spectrum and one could employ a small extra budget to get components that do specifically well in that regard. )"

In various Videos Rohan's hints at the possibilities made available to the team by the hardware present in the Adam such as the 12mp Camera.

I am inclined to agree with wtff's observations and justification.

The second possibility seems to be that the code is the second half of an FCC related code. Greg (a Notion Ink Blog Commenter) explains: "FCC assigns the grantee code (Y2G in this case) and Notion Ink designates the EPC. So the resulting FCC ID for the adam will eventually be Y2G-D5720A80."

This theory does seem plausible but does not lend itself to solve Rohan's riddle, Therefore creating some doubt. It could be that both observations are indeed true.

How to add Users from another Domain to SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2007

When deploying a new SharePoint farm, Admins can often overlook the fact that their users maybe in another domain or forest. To resolve this problem SharePoint 07/1020 must be told where these users are and how to access them.

This can be done using the people picker property. This property must be set using stsadm. You must open Command Prompt (as Administrator) on your SharePoint server.

Then type : cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14(for 2010) and 12 (for 2007)\BIN

You are now ready to execute the command:

stsadm -o -setproperty -url "http" -pn "searchadforests" -pv "example.net",Domain\Username, Password

To get best results ensure that you use the commas. The URL is the URL of your Web App. Example.net shows where your domain name needs to be. You need to also make sure there are no spaces between the Username and password.

The account must be from the Domain you are trying to look up users from. That account should have appropriate permissions in order to find these users.

If you have successfully run the command then you get an "Operation Completed Successfully" message (sometimes this is not true but) you can test this by adding a user from the external domain.

Notion Ink's Adam hits FCC Yesterday! Nov 24th

The Adam has also been submitted for FCC approval as shown here:

https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/GranteeSearch.cfm.

Search using “Notion Ink” in the Grantee Name. Filed yesterday. The ETA on FCC approval seems to be late December (if this actually is the Adam itself and not an accessory).

Notion Ink has also selected around 400 Developers for their Early Access Program and subsequently minor information leaks have surfaced, indeed confirming that the process is in motion.

The device has has got a lot of people excited and even more very sceptical about all the hype, however only time will tell! With rumours that Reliance are the majority Investors in Notion Ink it would seem that Notion Ink has substantial resources and expertise available to them (further cementing their position).

Confirmed: Notion Ink Adam Pre-orders start December 9th, revealed through binary on Notion ink Site

Update: the tweet from @ousiadroid is no longer there, most probably because legal told him to take it down!

Notion Ink in some style has revealed that pre-orders will be starting on December 9th. The Company placed Binary code on their Site for eager fans to solve. After little speculation the Director of UI at Notion Ink confirmed the findings on his twitter feed @ousiadroid. He then remarked that a new code (“-D5720A80″) has been put up for people to break. (“Code on the notionink website revealed: Preorders start on 9th December . Ofcourse, we put up a new code.”) The clue seems to hold some relation to the "Bonus Hidden Feature" mentioned on the Tech Specs page.

Rohan Sharavan (Notion Ink Founder) then gave a cryptic hint related to the code "-D5720A80" to help those trying to guess the bonus feature:

"Hint:
Few came dangerously close,
to change the fundamentals of light,
but few realized the power of the same,
and now it even works at night!"

Let the guessing begin!