The New York Microsoft office held a special session for OPC members on July 12 for digital tools that might help reporters get their jobs done more effectively.
OneNote 2010 was demonstrated to the group which basically allows someone who has notes here, reminders there, videos over in this bin and photos over in the other bin, a central warehouse in which to store these elements. It saves a lot of clicking and dragging around a computer desktop and acts as a collator of information and resources that might better help reporters to do their job. One of the many useful elements of OneNote is the ability to copy and paste an item from a website and have its web address, photo and text drop on to the OneNote page with all of the other notes for a particular project. The “inadvertent plagiarism” excuse would be rendered an even weaker a claim if reporters used this type of tracking tool. OneNote comes with Microsoft Office 2010 software.
Another tool on display was the Capturx digital pen and notebook. Microsoft does not make this pen but rather works in collaboration with the company Adapx. When a person writes with the pen on a specially calibrated Capturx paper notebook, the information is recorded digitally. So say a reporter is covering an event, and takes notes using this pen and notebook, they can then download the notes onto a computer and software will “digitize” the notes taken in the field. People on hand during the demonstration liked this possibility and asked (more than once), if Microsoft had any software that transcribed audio recordings — transcription being the bain of most reporter’s existence — but not much development has been made on transcription style software.
The people giving the demonstration were receptive to the suggestions audience members had, like the need for transcription software and a “reporter-sized” notebook for the Capturx pen (its current size weighs in at just over 8 x 11 inches. Their ability to listen is a far cry from the computer world of the 1980s where developers worked in seclusion and didn’t make software — or computers — with the end-user in mind.
The session lasted an hour and a half and attendees were treated to a bevy of cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and took home a Capturx digital pen and notebook.
See Microsoft’s online demonstration of OneNote >>