According to TechCrunch, OMG IPAD KILLAH Kno is dead. This will come as a huge shock to crazy people, who genuinely thought the massive 14.1-inch stylus-operated tablet (available in expensive $599 single-screen version or WHAT WERE THEY THINKING $899 dual-screen) would topple Apple’s iPad, despite Apple’s device working rather well in an education environment.

Still, the Kno guys aren’t fussed, because, apparently, it was always about the software and platform-agnosticity. CEO Osman Rashid said:

We have accelerated our 2012 strategy to 2011. Our long-term plan was always to support multiple platforms.

“No, really—honest,” he didn’t add, unless you read between the lines—lines positively bulging with sadness and delusion.

Still, it’s early days yet, and there’s loads of room in education for strong software. So what’s Kno’s next move?

Although Rashid wouldn’t confirm which platform Kno would support first, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be the iPad.

Because supporting the leading tablet would be really stupid.

Kno’s software centers around using a stylus, not your fingers. “There is no real concept of a stylus on the iPad,” says Rashid.

This is probably because humans by default come with ten perfectly reasonable styluses attached. That said, there are things like the AluPen. Of course, you’re pretty much screwed if you’ve based most of your software around stylus (read: fiddly) input, eh, Kno-guys?

“The current iPad is mant [sic] for the finger.”

Actually, it’s meant for direct manipulation of content, without any abstraction layer. The mouse cursor was always a nice idea but a terrible concept from an intuition standpoint, since you have to be taught to use it. But even a stylus is a poor content manipulation tool compared to a finger—again, because you need to be taught to use it.

He hopes this will change. “We hope Apple over time sees the value of a stylus in education because kids do need to learn how to write.”

Rashid favours teaching kids to interact with content rather than manipulating content. By contrast, I think writing is overrated, and is something fewer and fewer people bother with. I don’t debate that it’s a skill that children need to learn, but I’d sooner have a child immersed in solving maths puzzles rather than first having to grasp manipulating a pencil and laying out the sums; I’d sooner have a child immersed in finger-painting (real-world or digital) than battling with a fiddly paintbrush.

They can sort out their penmanship later.

Oh dear. You’ve got to hand it to the anti-AV lot—they’re pretty sneaky. On today’s inevitable daily BBC article on the matter, ex-Labour minister Caroline Flint wades in with her size whatevers:

The suffragettes fought for One Person, One Vote, not a political stitch-up like AV, which has been rejected by almost every country that has used it.

Yes, if you vote for AV, you are ANTI-WOMEN and ANTI-WOMAN-WHO-WANT-EQUALITY.

Unless,  of course—and I might just be guessing here—what the suffragettes were in fact fighting for was the right to vote at all. They weren’t chaining themselves to unmovable objects and chanting catchy slogans like:

Voting rights for women—as long as the United Kingdom retains the first-past-the-post voting system for Parliamentary elections, otherwise we’re really not that fussed.

Flint moans about Nick Clegg’s most recent defence of AV, where he states generations to come would see the ‘no’ arguments as nonsensical. She reminds everyone that Clegg himself called AV a “miserable little compromise”. This, of course, is entirely accurate: AV is a miserable little compromise. But it’s a step forward. Flint doesn’t seem to understand this:

One Person, One Vote – the bedrock of our current system – has stood the test of time and remains the only way to ensure elections are fair.

So under AV, is Flint arguing that random people are somehow given extra votes? Or is she suggesting that FPTP is the “only way to ensure elections are fair”? Man, those countries using proportional representation to ensure their elected ministers actually broadly represent the voting patterns of the country are SUCH IDIOTS with their unfair elections.

Let’s ignore the fact that, at present, it takes three times as many votes to elect a Liberal Democrat than a Conservative. That, clearly, isn’t unfair. (And if your response has anything to do with the Lib Dems in government being a bit rubbish, do sod off. Under PR, we’d have likely had a Lab/Lib coalition from the most recent election, which would have resulted in very different options; instead, we have a very senior partner and a very junior partner, with the latter sadly run by a gutless twit. It’s the overall argument that’s important—that some parties can have MPs elected far more easily than others, which is hardly democratic in any real sense of the word.)

Let’s ignore the fact that, in 2010, we got one elected Green MP when we should have had six, and absolutely no UKIP or BNP MPs exist, despite the parties securing 3.1 and 1.9 per cent of the vote, respectively. (Also, if you’re thinking PHEW!, that’s fine, but part of democracy is that you don’t always get what you want. If 919,546 people voted for UKIP, is it fair that there are no UKIP MPs at all, even if the party is pretty reprehensible? Not unless you have some interesting ideas about what ‘fair’ happens to mean.)

Instead, let’s keep arguing for an outdated system that will, without question, more often elect a Conservative government backed by a minority of votes (because the more liberal vote is split several ways); let’s argue for a system of exclusion for smaller parties; let’s argue for a system that largely eschews the evils of coalition (read: compromise and, in many cases—as evidenced elsewhere in Europe—some degree of continuity) in favour of wild swings between the Conservatives and Labour, with a new incumbent every 10 or 15 years, keen to throw out everything its predecessor did. Because, hey, that’s been working so brilliantly for the UK since World War 2, hasn’t it, so why bother changing anything?

UPDATE: And as @alexwlchan rightly says on Twitter:

If she really hates AV, why didn’t she argue against it when Labour used it to elect their party leaders?

Bloomberg reports on Acer’s “Windows PC for the iPad generation”. It’s very exciting:

You’ve never seen a personal computer quite like this one.

Ooh. Exciting!

Acer Inc. (2353)’s new Iconia 6120 Touchbook has many of the features you would expect from a full-sized laptop: an Intel Corp. (INTC) i5 microprocessor, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows 7 operating system, a 14-inch display.

Ooh. Exc– Actually, less exciting, because no-one cares about specs these days, but, hey, Windows 7 and a 14-inch display, so I’m sure for a cutting-edge competitor to a long-lasting iPad, NOTHING CAN GO WRONG HERE. (SPOILER: Something will go wrong.)

It’s also missing one feature you would expect: a keyboard. In its place is a second 14-inch touch screen. Need to type something? A full-sized virtual keyboard, complete with touchpad, appears on the bottom display when you lay your palms on it, to be used and then dismissed when no longer required.

Translation: Acer saw the Nintendo DS and thought “man, that really needs to be a whole lot bigger and run Windows”. But, hey, the DS worked. It worked really well. So this dual-screen thing might not be entirely stupid, and a 14-inch screen’s certainly big enough to get a full-size virtual keyboard under your fingers. Clearly, NOTHING CAN GO WRONG HERE. (SPOILER: Something will go wrong. Quite soon. Just wait a bit.)

The computer, which is available for order now and shows up in stores later this month, costs $1,199.99.

Ah. Well, I guess if we ignore the iPad’s price-point being a fraction of that and even the MacBook Air being $200 cheaper, that’s not too bad.

It weighs a hefty 6.2 pounds

And 2.2 pounds compares very favourably with Apple kit.

It weighs a hefty 6.2 pounds

Oh. So twice the 13-inch MacBook Air and more than four times heavier than the iPad? THINGS HAVE STARTED TO GO WRONG!

Typing on the glass takes some getting used to, though it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had expected […] My biggest problem wasn’t with the keyboard but with the trackpad, which is so small that my finger kept sliding past its virtual edges.

IT’S GOING WRONG! WE CAN’T STOP IT!

While there’s no tactile feedback when you land on a virtual key, as there is on some smartphones, you can hear an audible “click.” It’s a nice idea, except that there is a noticeable lag between hitting the key and hearing the sound.

IT’S LIKE NO-ONE’S EVEN LISTENING ANY MORE! IT’S ALL GOING WRONG!

The biggest drawback is the battery. The two touch screens suck power like a vacuum cleaner, and even Acer’s claim of three hours on a full charge may be on the high side if you’ve got the screens set to bright and are connected to a Wi-Fi network. Moreover, the battery isn’t user-replaceable, so you’ll tend to find yourself tethered to an electrical outlet.

IT’S ALL GONE WRONG!

A pretty funny report on TechRadar. Apparently, the UK price of the Xoom has just been updated. Dixons and Carphone Warehouse—who’d cunningly set the pre-order price of the Xoom to the same as the original equivalent iPad—have both realised the device isn’t entirely competitive since the iPad 2 came out. So what have they done? Clearly, sensible companies would realise that there’s still no really compelling answer to “why should I buy something other than an iPad?” and price accordingly.

Dixons has knocked 20 quid off the 32 GB Wi-Fi Xoom’s price, so you can pre-order your “real tablet” now for just £479.99. Meanwhile, Carphone Warehouse has dropped the price of the 3G model to £579.99.

I racked my brain for almost a microsecond before coming up with how they decided on these new prices. On the Apple Store, you’ll be shocked to see the 32 GB iPad 2 come in at £479 and the 3G model at £579. Which still means the Xoom is priced slightly higher, the idiots. But even in a direct comparison, if we ignore the piffling 99-pence extra, it’s effectively the same price for a device offering the vast majority of users an inferior experience, the double idiots.

Personally, I hope Apple changes the price of the iPad 2 three times over the next week, just to fuck with these guys.

As regular readers of Revert to Saved probably know, I’m Contributing Editor to Tap! magazine, Future’s spiffy bi-monhtly iOS publication. (I plan the games section and write quite a bit of it, too.) But today there’s some big news from the Future mothership:

Tap! is now going monthly.

Issue 4 will arrive in stores on May 12, and then subsequent issues will follow every four weeks. Personally, I’m thrilled at the development, because I know how much passion and effort goes into every page of the magazine. I’d like to publicly thank editor Christopher Phin for his faith in giving me an entire section to play with; also, thanks to each and every person who’s bought a copy of the mag so far, enabling us to now get you twice as much Tap! goodness every year.