Steve Jobs is giving the keynote address at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) today in San Jose. Despite a NDA covering all of the conferences, MacCentral is posting live coverage of the keynote address which opened with Mac OS 9 in a coffin. “Today we say goodbye to Mac OS 9 for all future development” said Jobs.
One interesting note was the announcement that Apple is adding handwriting recognition support (code-named Inkwell) to Mac OS 10.2 (code-named Jaguar). Matthew Rothenberg had a scoop on Inkwell back in July 2000:
Like the voice interface for Apple’s own PlainTalk software and IBM’s (ibm) ViaVoice, InkWell’s InkPad and InkBar appear as floating windows on the user’s desktop.
InkPad is a simple notepad interface where handwritten input is converted into editable text that can be placed in any document.
InkBar is a collapsible toolbar that will let users turn recognition on and off; launch the Ink Control Panel or InkPad; program the buttons on the stylus as modifier (Control, Option, Command or Shift) keys; or to act as modifying keys themselves.
Control over this standard commands means that users will be able to, for example, create a new folder on the desktop by holding down the command modifier button on the stylus and writing the letter “N” anywhere on the tablet. Another example: Alternatively, users can click the Command button on the InkBar, then write a letter “Q,” for example, to quit an application
More WWDC coverage is available on Slashdot.
