Newton Notes

After a flashy Comdex announcement last year (and by the way, the prototype shown there and in the press was purely a prototype and not a production design at all), little more has been heard about Apple’s Newton project. Current rumors point to a smaller "Newt" and a larger 6" x 8" "Newton Sr." that will include more collaborative capabilities. Apple seems to be backing off a bit on the general purpose uses of the Newton, perhaps because handwriting recognition is so deucedly hard to do well. Another factor may be Eo’s PDA-like device based on the RISC-based Hobbit chip from AT&T. The Eo device is aimed much more at personal communications rather than digital assisting, whatever that may be. More information may come out at Macworld SF next week.