HandwritingRecognition
Latest
Apple's patent application for pen-based computer remembers fingers can't write
Uh, um, ok... remember how Steve Jobs called the finger, the "best pointing device in the world" while chiding the stylus? Well, guess he wasn't lumping handwriting capabilities in with his lambasting if there's anything to this patent application for recognizing and processing "ink information" from a pen-based computer system that went public today (filed in July 2009). Naturally, the patent app makes liberal mention of tablets as the most recognizable pen-based computing systems; something that will certainly fuel speculation about the much rumored (it is still a rumor right?) Apple tablet possibly sporting a, gulp, stylus. Now go ahead and check the video after the break and listen to Steve Jobs describe the insanely great "pointing device we're all born with" (1:54) in addition to how Apple "invented a new technology called multi-touch" (2:03) with the patents to prove it (2:27 and 6:19). Oh MacWorld 2007, isn't there anything you can't do?
eviGroup's Pad is a 10-inch 3G tablet with personality
Time to freshen up the old netbook market with a dash of Windows 7, a pinch of touchscreen functionality, and a generous helping of... Seline10? eviGroup, the crew responsible for the attractive 5-inch Wallet MID, has announced the 10.2-inch Pad, whose pièce de résistance is the Seline10 artificial intelligence software that's been in development for a decade, if you can believe it. Its purpose is to act as your secretary / assistant, and while the novelty's good, we all know how well Clippy worked out. Fret not though, it's just an optional extra and shouldn't detract from the appeal of a device that offers 3G and a/b/g WiFi connectivity, one VGA and three USB ports, multicard reader, webcam, microphone, and the old faithful 1.6GHz of Atom power. A price of under €500 is being touted, with further details set to emerge over the coming days.
Livescribe for Mac gets handwriting recognition thanks to Vision Objects
When it comes to cool tools for the Mac, the Livescribe Pulse smartpen is one of the most innovative. It's a pen that works with special dot paper to capture your handwriting and drawings, and links what you write to what you hear since it also records every word within earshot. All of that information is transferred to your Mac for future reference.The Mac software that comes with the Pulse has been lacking in comparison to its Windows sibling in that it couldn't convert handwriting to editable computer text. Livescribe and Vision Objects today announced the Mac version of MyScript for Livescribe, handwriting-recognition software that converts handwritten notes from Livescribe into editable text.Owners of the Pulse smartpen can create their own dictionaries of commonly used words, abbreviations, names, or terms for even better conversion accuracy. MyScript can directly receive handwritten notes from Livescribe Desktop, convert shapes, tables, and drawings from the pen into editable images, and send converted text from MyScript to Microsoft Word for further editing or to Apple Mail. A 30-day free trial for Pulse smartpen owners is available here, and the program can be purchased for US$29.95 at any time. MyScript requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher on an Intel processor.
'Handwriting' recognition offers accurate way for dating stone tablets
Archaeology 101 will tell you that accurately dating an object is critical to understanding its meaning and value. When it comes to stone carvings, this typically requires a researcher with plenty of energy, time and skill, but scientists at the National Technical University of Athens have now developed a computer algorithm that promises to revolutionize the entire process. By overlaying digital scans of known inscribers' work, the Greek team are able to recognize stylistic idiosyncrasies and thereby identify the author of a carving. Their accuracy was confirmed by a recent test, in which they attributed proper authorship of 24 stone tablets, picking out the correct chiseler each time. Next step: seeking royalty payments for the works of your great uncle Xanthos.
PhonePoint Pen application is a hand-talkers' dream come true
Know someone who talks with their hands so expressively that you have to step back or risk catching a wayward exclamation point in the face? The video after the break will make their day. Students at Duke University have come up with a way to use phone accelerometers to capture gestures with surprising precision, allowing them to pipe those motions through a character recognition algorithm and, hey presto, turn flapping hands into letters and numbers. The prototype app is called PhonePoint Pen, and while right now the process looks painfully slow, with large, precise motions required, with a few months or years of refinements you might just be able to jot down a quick text to a friend while running between terminals, all without putting down the double latte that just cost you $8 at the airport food court. The future, dear readers, it's closer than you think.[Via Yahoo! News]
JCHyun's Udea Discovery PMP / dictionary loves to love you
Looking for a PMP that will be your eyes, ears, mouth, hair and forearms? Perhaps you should gently turn your attention to the JCHyun Udea Discovery -- a device that treads that tremulous space between MP3 player, Tricorder, and utter waste of money. Still, it's kind of packing a lot of heat for the asking price (179,000 KRW, or about $176) -- with 32 dictionaries in 4 languages (Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese), a video player, audio player, handwriting recognition, and an interface that looks like Windows Mobile... but likely isn't. You won't see this in the US anytime soon, so find yourself a good importer.[Via PMP Today]
Apple to include Chinese handwriting recognition in iPhone 2.0
One of our tipsters, Kenneth, pointed us to a Chinese web page (Google translation) showing what appears to be an iPhone running some sort of handwriting recognition geared especially for Chinese characters. According to the post, this is how Apple will integrate Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) input into the iPhone. As you write the character, you are presented with a list of the possible characters on the right side of the input pane. According to MacRumors, Apple recently started hiring "Handwriting Recognition Engineers," could this mean the iPhone is coming to China soon? Only time will tell, but this should definitely give people something to hope for. Thanks, Kenneth.
iPhone firmware 2.0 adds Chinese handwriting recognition, Newton sweats
Screen shots posted on Chinese site wretch.cc allege that iPhone firmware 2.0 has added support for Chinese handwriting recognition in addition to a revamped (albeit non-recognition) Japanese interface. While that's still light years from an Apple admission that not everyone is in love with the on-screen keyboard, it's one small step toward functionality that seems to make boatloads of sense -- in any language -- given the phone's generously proportioned touchscreen and its reluctant but unavoidable nomination as the Newton's spiritual successor. What isn't clear is how folks are expected to draw characters, seeing how there's no provision for an on-board stylus, the entire interface is designed for finger use, and we don't see many owner rushing out for a Pogo. However Apple intends for this feature to be used, the implementation looks pretty hot, capable of operating in both portrait and landscape modes. Sadly, it seems that Chinese is the one and only language supported at the moment; sure you don't want to let everyone in on the Graffiti-esque retro fun here, guys?[Via Mac Rumors]
Apple looking to put handwriting recognition into the iPhone?
We know Apple's had its Inkwell handwriting recognition software in OS X for years now, so we might have otherwise just totally glossed over this Handwriting Recognition Engineer job listing on Apple's site. Except for the part that reads: "The recognition technology you create may extend beyond Mac OS X to other applications and the iPhone." They always love to throw those little tidbits in there, don't they?[Via Macrumors]
EPOS Technologies' digital pen records your writing
Have you ever been sitting around and suddenly thought of the cure for cancer, or figured out how to build the world's largest hamburger, but you didn't have any way to get your idea down? Sure, you could write it on a piece of paper, but what if that paper got ripped, or blown away by a strong gust of wind? Well luckily, EPOS Technologies thought about all of this and came up with a solution: a digital pen which records your movements on a piece of paper, and then saves them to a USB flash drive for later use. The two-part combo utilizes the company's proprietary system of transmission which employs ultrasonic acoustic waves to help measure the distance and position of the pen, so apparently all you have to do is clip the flash drive to a notepad or related writing surface, and off you go. The whole wacky set-up is available for the bargain-basement price of $79, and should be available by the end of the year.
Hanwang pen tablet offers voice correction
Just under a week ago, Hanwang was out boasting about its handwriting recognition mouse, which sported a built-in writing area that solved the need for one of those huge platters to be lugged around; now, however, the company is indeed showing off one of those aforementioned tablets at CHITEC 2007. While details are obviously scant, the folks at AVing were able to catch some hands-on time with the writing device at the expo, and it looks to do a fair job of converting your handwriting to text if you're more comfortable wielding a pen than searching for the home row. Of course, if it does happen to get off track, it purportedly touts a "voice correction system to collate the inputs." The WACOM-styled unit also touts a number of hotkeys to go along with the stylus and decorative design scheme, but unfortunately pricing and availability still remain a mystery. Click on through for a few more sneak peeks.
Hanwang's handwriting recognition mouse one-ups Chinese keyboard
It's tough enough to peck and hunt when you've only got 26 or so primary characters to fool around with, but trying to construct something meaningful in Chinese just has to be a tad more complex than we'd like to imagine. Hanwang's latest mouse is looking to ease the pain suffered while penning an email with wildly elaborate characters by offering a more natural approach to keying in text, as built-in top-mounted screen accepts handwritten input via the integrated stylus (seen after the jump). As expected, users can actually write characters on the LCD rather than typing it in, presumably making things a bit easier on those who'd rather handle a writing utensil than fight with a keyboard. No word on pricing or availability just yet, but we're still not entirely convinced a mouse-sized panel would be classified as "convenient" when trying to pen a dissertation.[Via EverythingUSB]
Sony Ericsson Z558i does pen input
At first glance, the new Sony Ericsson Z558 looks like nothing more than a rehash of the Z550 geared toward the Chinese market. By and large, that's an accurate assessment, save for one critical detail: the new model packs a touch screen and stylus for handwriting recognition -- a feature that seems like overkill for Latin characters, but thinking about Chinese puts things in an entirely different perspective. Much like the Nokia 6108 before it, the Z558 sports handwriting recognition for the sole purpose of making life a little easier on folks whose languages are composed of thousands of characters (though as you can see from the press photo, you can write in English too, if you're into that sort of thing). Other features include a 1.3-megapixel cam, 18MB of internal memory expandable to 1GB via Memory Stick Micro cards, and a 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz GSM radio with EDGE; look for it in Z558c and Z558i variants for mainland China and the rest of the world, respectively.[Via Slashphone]
Palm and Xerox finally settle Graffiti dispute
So we weren't even aware that this was an issue anymore, but apparently Xerox and Palm have still been battling over that "Unistrokes" handwriting recognition patent which caused us to waste several minutes of our lives learning a handful of new Graffiti 2 characters oh so long ago. Battling up until today, that is, because after nine years the two companies have finally come to a mutually-acceptable agreement, wherein Palm caves and pays Xerox $22.5 million. The deal does net Palm paid-up licenses on a total of three Xerox patents -- licenses that also apply to Access PalmSource and 3Com -- as well as a so-called seven-year "patent peace," in which the two sides agree to stop fussing and fighting about infringements pertaining to certain technologies. Does this agreement mean that we can expect to see the triumphant return of Graffiti 1 on future Palm PDAs? We're not sure, but frankly, now that we've moved on to packing QWERTY-equipped Treos, we don't really care.
Samsung patent uses projector and electronic pen for virtual screen
We're a little confused, since yesterday the word was that Samsung had teamed up with Iljin Display for packing a projector into their phones, but we guess they need to have their bases covered. Samsung has just been granted a patent they submitted in 2004 for a virtual input interface, a bit similar to that virtual keyboard from iTech. It involves a phone-based projector, an "electronic pen," a "position detector" and some handwriting recognition stuff. Yeah, we know, real technical-like, but it sounds like yet another vain attempt to create a better way to input text and other info into a mobile phone. Can't fault them for trying, but let's hope the mind-reading efforts are well under way.[Via Unwired View]
Worldwide Newton Conference begins today
The Macworld Expo is coming to a close in San Francisco, but that doesn't mean that the fun is over. The Worldwide Newton Conference begins three days of workshops, information sessions and keynote speeches today. Scheduled activities include a workshop on creating Newton fonts, an update on the Einstein Newton emulator by Paul Guyot and keynote speeches by Larry Yaeger (Technical Lead in the development of the handwriting recognition system behind the Newton PDAs and Mac OS X's Inkwell) and James Joaquin, who will present a brief history of Newton development, among others.If you're attending, drop us a line! We'd love to have your photos and/or reports.
