Putting pen to screen on Tablet PCs

With the release of the first Tablet PCs produced to Microsoft Corp.´s general specifications, handheld computers may be about to leap into the ring with today´s laptops. They will be about the size of the smaller laptops, will be at least as powerful, and maybe their biggest selling point-will be able to handle handwritten text. The Tablet PCs will be amply configured, general-purpose machines with more than enough power to run the full-blown Windows XP operating system. In particular, they will allow handwritten text to be entered onto a digitizing tablet and recognized, a functionality that´s called pen-based computing. The Tablet PC will far outpace the computing power of existing small devices such as PDAs (personal digital assistants), including those variants based on Microsoft´s own Pocket PC operating system.