Microsoft InkSeine - Tablet PC note-taking on steroids

What is InkSeine ?

InkSeine is a Tablet PC note-taking application designed (from Microsoft research but not a Microsoft product) and built from ground up around the pen, with the ability to easily search the web or your local computer directly from your ink.

What in the world does Inkseine mean ?

“To seine is to fish with a net. To fish for results from ink is not insane, but rather InkSeine!” What a great definition for this prototype note-taking application being released by Microsoft Research.

Isn’t there something like this already ?

Yes and it is called Microsoft OneNote. But InkSeine is like a complementary tool to OneNote. OneNote is a great tool with many useful features that you will not find in InkSeine. But InkSeine’s user interface is like nothing you have ever used with your pen before. It takes inking on your Tablet PC to a new level.

Where can I see it and get this ?

Microsoft InkSeine website shows this as an example of the kind of rich note you can quickly throw together with InkSeine - with ink, clippings, links to documents and web pages, and queries persisted in-place. Together, the integration of all of this with a silky-smooth user interface for handling your pen and ink notes makes InkSeine a powerful and simple tool for thought.

These are some of the cool features offered by InkSeine:

Blaze a super-fast trail by using radial menus for pen commands.
Just hover to preview the commands. Touch down in the center and
stroke towards the command you want to activate it. On a UMPC with a
passive touchscreen, hold the pen on a radial menu to preview its commands.
Directional strokes offer a fast way to select pen styles.

Directional strokes offer a fast way to select pen styles.

Select existing ink right on the page to initiate a search. Lassoing search terms

Create queries in the context of your notes to keep track of searches,
reuse them, or return to them later.

Easily find emails, documents, ink notes, or web pages without
leaving your notes.

Drag links to the documents and web pages you find right into your
notebook.
…or drag images into your notes, from search results or file folders.

Filter your desktop searches by file type or date with simple pen
controls.

Scroll through any application by circling the pen - or capture screen
clippings for markup - using InkSeine’s convenient tool ring. The
tool ring floats on top of whatever applications you have open,
ready for use.

Automatic hyperlinks: When you use thetool ring to capture screen
clippings from Office applications (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, & emails
in Outlook), or from web pages (viewed in Internet Explorer), the
capture automatically gets a hyperlink attached to it. Use the link to
quickly re-access the document! InkSeine does not support automatic
hyperlinks for captures from OneNote, PDF files, or web pages viewed in Firefox.

View your notes page-by-page, like a real notebook. Never waste
time scrolling and zooming again! Pages scale to fit the screen when
you rotate your tablet.

Hover over any page to get a preview of it.