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Shorthand-Aided Rapid Keyboarding
An anonymous reader writes "IBM's famous reseach lab for nanotechnology, micoelectronics and exotic science, Almaden Research Center, has released an advanced, efficient, pen-based text input method for mobile computing, that allows you to trace letters on the keyboard to enter a word rather than typing each letter individually. The new technology provides a more fluid, smooth, and natural interaction (see demo ) than tapping on stylus keyboards."
With an acronym like SHARK, it's got to be good!
Also, words like, "mnemonic", "sokgraph", "algorithms" and "morphed" guarantee a high geek-Q.
Unfortunately, another geek/teen-popular word is "random".
Agreed. But no matter how much I do like it it's bound to be better than the current system most PDAs use.
I can't see myself memorizing too many words over 5 letters though, even after repeated use. They tend to just look like random scribbling.
I wonder how long it will take this technology to "jump the shark".
If you touch type, you already have memorized patterns for many words over 5 letters in length. Every word that I am typing is one that I have typed many times before. I never think of where the keys are anymore . I just... type the words.
That is the beauty of SHARK. You'll eventually be able enter a word pattern, rather than focus on where the letters are.
I can't see myself memorizing too many words over 5 letters though, even after repeated use. They tend to just look like random scribbling.
Well, typing just looks like random pecking in a grid. You may never really be able to memorize these intentionally, but the brain and musle memory are much better at learning habits than you would think. It's just a matter of time and repetition.
It looks great to me. The only thing is that the 'keyboard' map they used is really oriented towards english and is different from the good old qwerty everyone is used to. As a native french speaker, I really wonder how quick it is to use for common words.
It sure looks faster than current grafiti on palms and it has visual feedback. I'm just bad at hand writing, and slow on a palm. This might be what I need.
Qui ne va pas à la chasse n'a pas de gibier
PHP Queb
The sensible thing to do would be to not worry about the extra letter, and translate the stroke for b-a-l-o-n to balloon in the dictionary subsystem. Ambigous entries aren't really any more of a problem with this since it looks like they already have them and have dealt with them with the drop-down correction box.
If you look at the video carefully you will see that this system uses a dictionary to work: Certain motions on the keyboard are ambiguous, requiring the system to compare it against the dictionary (pay special attention to the popup menu half-way through the video).
ream ember tea probe lamb with the Apple Newton?
Dictionary systems always look great in a demo, but the great advantage of Grafitti-like systems like on the Palms is that you can type anything and it works even if its not in the dictionary!
I know you're going to get slaughtered for the above, which is a shame because you make a reasonable point but with a bad example. Anyway, I know this is heading offtopic but it comes up a lot on Slashdot. Let me be the first to say:
Dvorak is NOT better than Qwerty.
The original studies that 'proved' the superiority of Dvorak were conducted by none other than Mr Dvorak himself! The tests were repeatedly and ridiculously unfair, in that they compared groups of typists who could never be reasonably compared.
Subsequent fair tests by independent parties have shown that Dvorak is no better once the typist reaches a reasonable degree of experience, and until that point they will perform much worse than on Qwerty if they are transitioning, as would presumably be the case for anyone reading this.
You can read about the total debunking here, and here if you still don't believe me.
Lots of things which are better don't catch on. But like Betamax (vs VHS), Dvorak isn't one of them.
apterous.org