A couple weeks ago the OS informed me that the extended battery for my Motion LS800 had issues and should be replaced.  Not really surprising as the battery is 3 or 4 years old and has been heavily used. 

I swapped back to the standard battery and now woe is me – it too tells me that it needs to be replaced.  This battery is actually even older than the Extended battery.

This could spell the end for my much loved Motion LS800, which is a real shame.  Worse than that it is my only tablet that is a slate.  And if I were to replace it – what would I replace it with?

Motion seem to have focused on vertical markets and as such all the new devices they are releasing are ruggudised, specialised or both.  Who makes a nice corporate Slate these days? 

Electrovaya and the Scribbler SC 4000 still seem to be around, but they have never made it downunder AFAIK.

The Tablet Kiosk Sahara range is probably the most comprehensive, but there has been little development in the year or so since I looked at it last.

Fujitsu have had an on again, off again affair with the slate form factor.

Why isn’t anyone building cool new slates these days?  Do you think we’ll see any new slates hitting the market when Windows 7 ships?

There is a new user group coming to town and starting the right way – with touch related demos and fresh Windows 7 goodness.

Nicholas Rayner and Craig Bailey have joined forces to create the Sydney Windows User Group.  From the site:

The aim of the SWUG is to support and provide advice to consumers, power users and small business in regards to the Microsoft Windows Operating System and related products. The user group will showcase the Windows Operating System and provide demonstrations of key components of Windows can be used both at home and in your business.

The User Group will also focus on related Microsoft Products including Windows Mobile, Windows Home Server, Microsoft Office, Windows Live and XBOX 360 and how they can be used to enhance the Windows user experience.

The first meeting will be at Microsoft in Sydney on the 13th of May, 2009.  Here’s the details.

Meeting details

Date: Wednesday 13^th May 2009

Time: 6pm – 9pm

Venue: Microsoft Australia - 1 Epping Road, North Ryde

Agenda:

6:00pm – Introduction

6:10pm – News with Q&A session

6:30pm – Windows 7 RC Demonstration

7:20pm – Break

7:40pm – Windows Touch including a demonstration on the HP Touchsmart PC

8:20pm – Close

If you can make it to the first meeting, please RSVP to nicholas@windowsusergroup.com

I’ve already put it in my calendar so if you can make it I’ll be seeing you there.  You may also want to add the RSS Feed from the SWUG blog to your feed reader, so you can keep tabs on future meetings.

I’m not jumping on this “I’m a PC” bandwagon.  Why limit myself?  I’m not just a PC…  I’m a tablet pc!

With pen and touch at my disposal I can do so much more than a mere PC. This is especially true with the Windows 7 beta installed.

I took the liberty of fixing one of the logos from the logo pack on the web site. 

Feel free to grab a copy of the image for your own use.

If anyone from Microsoft wants to turn my version into a sticker – make sure you send me a few.

There is no doubt in my mind that the building wave that is the netbook craze is going to renew interest in tablet an touch technology.  Windows 7 provides a really nice tablet experience and is much more touch aware than Vista was.

We are also seeing something in the netbook craze that I think a great thing for all mobile PCs.  Lots of competition.

The Atom processors provide excellent performance and battery life, but they don’t seem to suffer the same heat problems.

Could it be that the planets are aligning for not only more tablets, but perhaps even more slates?  I think maybe the answer is yes.  The critical question is one of demand.  Is there demand for slate devices, particularly in the consumer space?

There is certainly interest – remember the interest sparked last year when it was revealed that an enterprising user was making a tablet out of an eee PC? 

And there is interest on the manufacturer side as well.  In December Fujitsu announced its first new slate in quite some time.

I hope we will see a revival of the slate form factor.

I got a sneak peek at a team doing some interesting development with touch technologies in Sydney on Thursday.

My friend Nick Randolph is the Chief Development Officer at nsquared solutions. He his heading up a team of developers working on development projects with a range of cutting edge technologies including Windows 7, multitouch, multipoint and Microsoft Surface.  

They are working on some really cool projects that are really going to show how multitouch can really change the paradigms we work with in user interfaces now.

It is exciting stuff and I am sure we will be hearing more form nsquared in the near future.  In the meantime you might want to check out Nick's teaser post about what they are working on and subscribe to the nsquared blog feed.