A recent ZDNet News story gives some speculative details surrounding InkWell, a handwriting recognition package that Apple is supposedly planning to release for use with Mac OS X. Based on the Newton's incredible "Rosetta" handwriting recognition engine, and in conjunction with Wacom's pen input devices, the package should bring startlingly effective handwriting recognition to the Mac. The touchpad on the in-the-works Mercury G4 laptop is rumored to be able to be used as a "writeable surface" for this technology.
Definitely cool stuff. We're quite anxious to see this hit market, as would be anyone who's had the pleasure of using a Newton 2.x device and its glorious handwriting recognition capabilities.
(UPDATE: corrected article source (originally ZDNet, complete with screenshots), also see brief summary and much web discussion at Slashdot's mention of this technology...worthy of all this hooplah, I'd say.)