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Handwriting Recognition on DS
JamesO writes "Zi Corporation has announced a licensing agreement with Nintendo that will allow developers to make use of handwriting recognition.
PDAs have been offering handwriting recognition for some time and with the DS's touch screen it seemed inevitable that the console would eventually gain handwriting recognition technology. An agreement between Zi Corporation and Nintendo means that DS developers will be able to utilise Zi Decuma handwriting recognition technology when creating software for the handheld."
What kind of SDK is available for the DS? What language(s) can you use?
On a side note, are there any phones / pdas that have a Python sdk available?
cue the Newton fanboys...
This certainly makes the DS more interesting to me (not that I'd use it as a PDA or anything). But if you can jot notes into the thing, and have it OCR'd for you, it would make it a lot handier than it is right now. Can anyone comment intelligently on how the DS CPU would handle such a thing?
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
It's nintendo so the recognition will probibly will be top notch.
Still, I don't want my best friend thinking I'm coming onto him or something when I ask him for a game or two.
This is going to make 'up up down down left right left right b a b a select start' a pain to enter
Now I can trash talk other people in multiplayer mode!
Handwriting recognition != OCR, since there are no optics involved.
...my Prlm.
I sure hope they put this to good use in Animal Crossing DS, it was a pain in the butt to use the controller to write letters to the villagers.
Writing of the Dead
Nintendo will now be marketing this to very young kids, once games come out that can teach kids how to write. Of course, this will depend on how good the handwriting recognition will be. This could be really good news for the future of penmanship, or really bad.
End transmission.
No matter how well you develop this thing, AIN'T nuthin nobody can ever do to figure out my chicken scratch. I can't even read it right after I write it. They made keyboards for a reason - geeks can't write.
There's already a Japanese-English dictionary for the DS, but it's so so at best. A good handwriting system for the machine would be an incredible boon - often times I'm presented with a kanji I simply don't know the reading for (and I can't input it into my electronic dictionary's QWERTY interface). I do know enough kanji to be able to copy many down by writing them, so being able to write say a compund and having the DS spit out a list of possible readings and defintions would be amazing and would help me learn Japanese in the real world (here in Japan anyway) more easily as I could begin decoding stuff in the world witout need of my onerous New Nelson Kanji dictionary.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Would that really be so awful. My penmanship was never good to begin with but I find that I so rarely sit down and write with a pen that the skill has badly deteriorated. More so with cursive then printing. I'm not sure that it is a skill we badly need any more in modern society.
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Welcane aur new hondwriting recogmition ouerlonds!
Oh yeah...
Oh Apple, why won't you bring back the Newton. :-(
They might be able to use it for the Revolution, with the unique controller and all...
GBA Movie player + flash + your collection.
Kearney: Hey Dolph, take a memo on your Newton, 'beat up Martin'.
Writes:
"Beat up Martin"
Newton translates:
"Eat up Martha
Newton hits Martin in the head.
While both involve analyzing glyphs, one involves extracting a glyph from an interpolated image (a scanned document or simmilar), while the other has the benefit of having direct digital input.
The prior is a different problem to solve. The hardest problem with OCR is reliably differentiating between a letter and a non-letter pixel on the page. Once you have the pixels that are just the letter, it is usually simple to figure out what letter it is. This is the idea behind Captchas, to make it as hard as possible to figure out those pixels.
Handwriting recognition is a different problem. You know the input exactly, but it is harder to figure out what letter it belongs to.
Of course, the corss between the two is OCR'ing handwriting, which I have never seen done in any kind of reliable fashion.
I don't know about anyone else but I can't hardly read my own handwriting as it is (the reason I type on a computer :P ) I can't really see much use for it in games. Then again someone will come up with an off the wall idea that will fly. What's next? Voice recognition for pokemon games? I can already see kids yelling at their DS more so than nintendogs cause.
I've really been disappointed by the tiny progress in using a stylus for input. A decade and a half ago, "pen computing" was "the next big thing". Microsoft even marketed a "Word for Windows for Workgroups for Pen Computing" edition (presumably with a "Spellcheck for Word for..."). The Palm Pilot actually delivered on the Apple Newton's promise to use our pen skills to deal with little mobile devices. But now even Palm devices, like Treos, usually disregard the pen. I think it's not so much the lack of writing recognition (which is more than adequate, though it does have problems), as the lack of any unique pen advantages to compensate for having to use a separate pen rather than an integrated keyboard.
Pens offered an opportunity to use an expressive, intuitive gestural interface. Even mouse gestures have run circles around pen gestures. I'd like to use a pen to indicate multiple selections, associations, layouts, flows, scales, shapes. I think an interface that used chinese symbols as commands on selected objects would have tremendous popularity, and maybe even work with a huge new global zeitgeist that could jump all kinds of boundaries represented by keyboards, especially QWERTY.
We still have the opportinity to use pointers for a really expressive, simple interface "for the masses". I built a "light pen" for my Atari PC over 20 years ago. Even Treos still come with styluses, and now the DS will recognize handwriting. Most people use pens, probably even more than keyboards, especially worldwide. That input mode isn't going away, even if it's not being pushed. Even though OSes and apps still haven't delivered on their potential, there's still lots of pent-up (pun intended) demand to use them. I don't think the breakthru lies in dropping the pen in favor of a fingertip, though I'd like to see some working software that tested that avenue. I think that once we get a pen-centric UI paradigm that does things keyboards and mice cannot, we'll get pens that people won't put down.
--
make install -not war
DS Training For Adults can already recognize when you write numbers with the stylus. I'm sure it's much easier to do but it still does it on the math part of the "game".
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
The Nintendo DS is falling behind in sales against the superior Sony PSP.
From a Gamespot article:
"Recent sales figures provided by Dengeki Online revealed that cumulative shipments of the DS have nearly doubled those of the PSP in Japan since both launched in the country last December. As of the end of September 2005, Nintendo sold 3.2 million units of its DS handheld in Japan, while Sony Computer Entertainment shipped only 1.7 million units."
. Dependency on Cartridges: The age of the game cartridge has come and gone. The overwhelming success of the Sony Playstation and its "intellegent" use of CD-ROM based media effectively killed the cartridges as a viable media format for software.
Maybe for home consoles. But do you really want something portable that has moving parts? No matter how damn hard you try, you're going to treat anything handheld pretty badly.
3. Lack of Wi-Fi Internet Connectivity: The DS only allows for multiplayer games via its wi-fi connection with oher DS units but users cannot access public wi-fi drops like with the PSP and different PDA models. Because of this it would be impossible to sync data on the DS and a PC or another PDA because of this design.
And just how much more convenient is it to browse the web with a PSP? Ever heard of something called "input"? Besides, what's McDonald's for? Or the 50-dollar Mario Kart/Wi-Fi dongle package.
4, No Support for Storage Media: The DS does not natively support any form of flash media cards for storing data.
Just how "universal" is the so-called Universal Media Disc? Seen any blanks on sale recently?
5. Dominant Childen Marketing Angle:(not even going to bother with this one...)
Quantity doesn't really matter if Nintendo is the only one who can stay in black. So what if games are aimed for chilren? I don't think adults have gone "Eww" at Mario Party.
The company is too slow to change and adapt with the current market and current technology.
Who came up with Rumble? Who came up with the analog stick? Who came up with the shoulder buttons? Rather, just look at the fscking Revolution controller.
It's flaimbait, it's troll, but I bit.
I actually created an account on slash dot just to reply to this initial posting. It seems to me that everyone of his/her comments was inaccurate. The DS is outselling the PSP. Cartridges load much faster and hence the DS does not have the crippling load times of the PSP. The wireless is standard 802.11b and hence it can connect to the PC if the software was written for it. And yes, the DS can play only, as we will all be doing when Mario Kart comes out! Don't even get me started on keeping up with current technology. Nintendo invents the new technology... The examples of analong stick, shoulder buttons, rumble and more are all good examples of that. Just because the didn't use DVD or CD? They might be easy to create, but they are also just as easy to copy! No wonder they are trying to stay away.
The (Newton) Message Pad 2x00 processor was a 162MHz StrongARM 110 but the older ones were only 20MHz ARM6. Incidentally, the MP120(2.0) and the MP130 ran the newer OS (same as the 2x00) that was very capable of decent handwriting recognition unlike the original lineup. Having extensively used both a MP120(2.0) and a MP2100 I can attest to this. The 2100's only advantage was speed.
The DS has a 66MHz ARM9 and a 33MHz ARM7. Logically, unless the ARM7 is needed for some specific DS tasks you could have it doing as good of HWR as the MP120 and still have the ARM9 free for whatever other task you required.
Links to more info about ARM Archetecture and Newton hardware.
The DS game Brain training has handwriting recognition already.
Why not just use Palm's Graffiti system? I'm not aware of any system that's gotten handwriting recognition to work properly, eg. Apple's Newton.
Funny thing is Sony purchased it's technology for the PS1/CD FROM Nintendo.
A few points that the other rebuttal did not hit on:
+ DS cartridges cost less than PSP UMDs (the UMD uses more plastic and metal in the casing alone than the DS cartridge does as a whole).
+ Optical disks hold a distinct disadvantage on the portable market aside from only the "moving parts" angle: Disks mean load times. By the time Lumines loads, which certainly has shorter load times than most, I could be halfway through my first match of Meteos.
+ Blu-Ray disks are not inexpensive to manufacture, when you add in the $2 million cost per production line (assuming all Blu-Ray lines will be adapted from existing DVD lines) that will get funnelled down to consumers.
+ Nintendo DS's current market share is more and more becoming predominantly teen to twenty something women. The DS was launched for the older gamer, believe it or not.
+ The PSP wireless support is terrible at best. I have not played a match of Twisted Metal to completion without getting dropped. Also, DS supports any wi-fi connection, and provides a universal network, a-la Xbox Live, for players to connect to.
+ Proprietary DVD format came from the fact that Nintendo agressively fights pirating, which is a hell of a lot harder to do when off-the shelf DVD-R's don't fit in your machine.
+ The PSP is actually longer than the DS, making it much harder to fit in your pocket. Additionally, the PSP almost requires a good case to carry it anywhere, which just adds to the bulk. A DS, while not as small as the GBASP nor as stylish as the PSP, slides easily into the pocket and requires no protection for safe transport.
+ By the time Mortal Kombat was released, Sega was already semi-dominant. Sega had a commanding lead at the beginning of the 16-bit era, which only closed in the latter years of that generation. Nintendo's move did not affect their position in the slightest, and certainly can not be said to have lost Nintendo revenue, except for the cases of those who had both a Genesis and SNES, which, in my experience, was more rare at the time.
+ Nintendo is a games company, and thus does not need to "adapt" to forces at work in most other industries, as Sony and Microsoft have felt the need to do with the inclusion of, for example, DVD playback functionality. Nintendo focuses on games and, while some like more convergent boxes, they feel no need to provide that. Online gameplay, as many like to cite, is still not widely accepted, and it has been seen since 1998's NetBand (may be the wrong name) adapter for the Saturn, which brought Sega Rally and Daytona USA online. Hell, before that, there was X-Band, which nobody adopted.
It's pretty clear that Nintendo has somehow acquired a kiddie image. However, when I actually look at game lists for the PSP and DS and look at titles that at least have a hope of being "good", I don't really see much of a distinction between games that would be appealing to mature audiences between PSP and DS. If anything, the DS matches count and adds greater variety to the mix with games like Advance Wars that the PSP, sticking to more stereotypical genres like plain shooters and rpgs, just won't offer.
/. in the past week?
Also, I have no idea how much Nintendo is spending on their carts for DS, but its obviously less than $30 bucks a pop, being many games launch at that price. Also, I thought that solid state memory was the FUTURE of computing...in fact, how many times has this been brought up on
Funny thing is Sony purchased it's technology for the PS1/CD FROM Nintendo
Scratch that! Nintendo was originally partened with Sony for a CD attachment to combat the Sega CD, but switched to Phllips half-way through. Sony then decided to go out and amke thier own console... And the PS1 wa born.
A $900 phone with no vibrate function? I think I'll pass.
Thanks for the info - very helpful.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Uh... that's all well and good, but you do know that the DS is beating the PSP in all three major regions, right?
Hell, look at last week's European sales:
Sales for October 17-23.
DS-23,035
GBA-10,034
PSP-8,000
It would help if the people disparaging handwriting recognition had actually used Decuma. Right now my biggest problem with my PDA (Dell Axim WinMobile2003) is that Decuma doesn't support Mobile 2003 devices, so I can no longer use it. For both Japanese AND English, the software is spot-on. Right now I'm using a hacked version of the Japanese IME that a very clever hacker got working for Japanese and the standard transcriber, and my note-taking (in english) has been slowed down immensely with transcriber over decuma's english system. I'm considering just getting a Palm when I upgrade so I have it for input again. It's really that good.
I've used Decuma's handwriting recognition software on my Palm, and it's a pretty competent system, didn't take very long for me to get used to. The main reason I ditched it was screen real-estate; I've got a "square" Palm rather than one with Virtual Graffiti, so I couldn't justify giving up that much space when the Graffiti pad was already available. That shouldn't be too much of an issue on the DS, of course, because anything that uses handwriting recognition can be expected to dedicate the touchscreen for that purpose.
Not only for the practical applications (a Newton that works? Brilliant!) but for the game opportunities. The DS is, after all, a video game console, intended to bring new types of games to the masses. Sure, this may just get used literally, so you can write things instead of typing them - hooray, no more slow on-screen keyboards - but this can also be used as an element of a game. I had an idea using the Revolution instead of the DS that I posted on GameFAQs. Even though it's not DS-specific, it could certainly work and explain what I mean. http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?bo ard=988&topic=24153772
The funny thing is that the GBA is often second. This should tell the PSP fanboys something. Real gamers like to play games. The PSP has a great install base with those who like to pirate games, watch movies on a 4 inch screen or listen to mp3s on a device that weighs about 12 times as much as an iPod Shuffle. But for those of us who just want to play good games, Nintendo is where it's at in the portable market.
I use Linux as my desktop at home. I have an XBox and a Pocket PC. So I'm no idealogue. I buy what works best for me. And for gaming that's been for years the Gameboy Advance. The DS (like the PSP since I've owned both) has some ergonomic issues due to its weight. At least for me, as a computer programmer with wrists and hands that have been abused for years, the ergonomic issues are pronounced. So I don't own either anymore. But the library of the GBA is top-notch. And when I owned both a PSP and DS the PSP gathered dust and was sold pretty quickly, while meanwhile I had a hard time letting the DS go. So many good games.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Meteos
Kirby: Canvas Curse
Electroplankton (import)
Band Brothers (import)
Ouendan (import)
And so many more to come. The DS is where the real innovation is taking place. It makes me sad I can't play it *physically*. If I could, the DS would be my number 1 system.
They are not traditional RAM cartridges like the GBA and n64 and past console systems. The DS uses a proprietary Flash memory media that is currently capable of 256mb of space but expandable to 1gb of space. That's actually quite a lot of space and my understanding is it is relatively cheap on Nintendo's end to produce.
If the current market trends and price drops are any indication as well, Flash media or an equivilant will likely be replacing optical media like CDs, DVDs, UMDs, etc in another generation or two as the media format of choice.
Why? Outside of costs, which are dropping dramatically, Flash media has a multitude of inherant advantages including small size, no moving parts to wear out, and protective casings to prevent scratch damage. Honestly, Sony's UMD technology seems more like a step backward than forward for a portable device. It is tremendously taxing on the system's battery and much more prone to potential malfunction. I can bet you that if Sony could have found a way to make cheap 1gb+ flash catridges they would have left the UMD slot out entirely since they already have a memory stick slot on the unit.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
You know, I usually let this type of bullshit slide by. But I am tired. So very tired of the mis-information and the outright spin people on Slashdot create.
/. community has finally lost their mind.
:)... you get the idea.
Why do you Nintendo fans need to be so fucking nuts? Why do you need to bullshit constantly? Why can't the PSP be better? Why do you have to be so JEALOUS?
Like I said, I would let this slide, but it got "Insightful". I think the
Let's break this down shall we?
So first we have the sales figures. I have no problem dealing with those. Sure Nintendo is doing well, they have been around for over FIFTEEN YEARS in the handheld gaming market! That might account for something. What I can't deal with is the fact that Sony has made a BETTER PRODUCT and somehow this is wrong to Nintendo fans. I'll explain below.
Next we have the cartridge vs optical media. Well this to me is a no brainer. The PSP is a almost full-on (downclocked) PS2, so games need fair sized textures and fair sized audio files (GTA is a grand example). This would be impossible without optical media. Sure cartridges are damn fast, but I like content too! I'm not one for the overpriced UMD movies, but hey, SOME PEOPLE ARE! I drive to work, so I don't get to use my PSP often other than at home. But if were taking the train, it would be really nice to watch movies, listen to music, or play a game all on the same unit while I'm going to work. So yeah, UMD might be slower, but think of the data it's grabbing to fill the gfx and sfx requirements of the PSP? And plus, the load times are not bad. I was shocked when I started GTA:LCS and it was quicker then it's console counterparts.
At this part of the train wreck we meet WiFi. So the DS has 802.11b, wow great. Too bad you can't fucking use it how it was designed. Like classic Nintendo, it's locked down (power connect for SP anyone?). Meanwhile Sony (slowly becoming more open), keeps it open and tosses in a web browser while their at it! Great!!! Oh but again, because it's Sony, somehow it's bad, or useless to have. Even if it exists, and you may not use it, it's still useless?! LOGIC ERROR! So yeah, wait for your Mario Kart rehash... and uhh yeah, catch up.
Storage media... haha you completely dodged the statement. But of course you would, you dodge the fact that Nintendo is selling you the same thing over and over each time as well. I'll leave that one alone, it's pretty obvious. By the way, UMD is a name. Sure some marketing guy said we'll call it Universal, but hey, maybe Sony is licensing it, maybe they have other plans for it. Who knows? I do know one thing, you don't know.
And don't even get into the economics of this ok? Please, just don't. This is where your stupidity pours into the room. Sony is a GIANT corporation. Nintendo is micro by comparasion. And let's no get into the rehashing of titles that are older than most people's children.
Lastly we have innovation. This is a fun one. You and the guy who replied to you, use rumble, analog stick, shoulder buttons, etc as examples of innovation. Try again. Rumble wasn't Nintendo. This has been proven on Slashdot before. Others had rumble long before Nintendo did. Analog stick is an child of the joystick, I think that's more organic than innovative. Same with shoulder buttoms, very organic, a given. Now lightgun, that was innovative, powerglove too! Rev controller? A bit, but it's feeding off of previously known tech. Now what about Sony? Has anyone even seen the Eyetoy coupled with PS3? It has full face recongnition and mapping. They can apply facepaint to your face while you move it around, they can change your clothes and hair, while you look around the room; all in real time. So what does this mean? Imagine a nerf style bat? Imagine a gun shaped... well gun
So please stop the bullshit and half-truths. I used to like Nintendo, but I grew up and realized th
To handwriting devices replacing keyboards! aah! I scare myself >_>
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Your sig - don't you mean monomers? Polymers are always long-chain, and don't tend to smell much. And if you mean that as a Gibson reference he does say monomers.
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s/mature/insecure adolescents/
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Alex Trebek: What? No. No, no, that is The Pen is Mightier.
Sean Connery: Gussy it up however you want, Trebek. What matters is does it work? Will it really mighty my penis, man?
Alex Trebek: It's not a product, Mr. Connery.
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+ DS cartridges cost less than PSP UMDs (the UMD uses more plastic and metal in the casing alone than the DS cartridge does as a whole).
I wonder what gave you this idea. The manufacturing cost of a minimum size DS cartridge (64 megabits) is marginally cheaper than UMD, including case. As the size goes up, so does the cost; by the time you've hit 256 megabits, you're more expensive than a UMD.
Disks mean load times.
Certainly true, and a much bigger issue than most people admit.
+ Blu-Ray disks are not inexpensive to manufacture, when you add in the $2 million cost per production line (assuming all Blu-Ray lines will be adapted from existing DVD lines) that will get funnelled down to consumers.
This is pretty silly. You think that the Matrix Semiconductor 3d FRAM plant costs less to make than the UMD plant? (By the way, blu-ray is the next gen DVD format, not what the PSP uses. They're fundamentally different.)
+ Nintendo DS's current market share is more and more becoming predominantly teen to twenty something women. The DS was launched for the older gamer, believe it or not.
Where are you getting your data? The primary market demographic for the DS is the 7-11 cross-gender range, the secondary demographic is the 13-17 male range, and the tertiary demographic is the young male range. Young adult females are well represented in comparison to consoles, but they're certainly not the platform's primary demographic, nor are they what the platform was launched for. A quick inspection of the commercials or launch titles will tell you exactly who Nintendo thought their market was.
The PSP wireless support is terrible at best. I have not played a match of Twisted Metal to completion without getting dropped.
Yeah, that's more about your wifi hardware than the PSP. The vendors of the Nintendo and Sony wifi hardware are comparable in quality.
Also, DS supports any wi-fi connection, and provides a universal network, a-la Xbox Live, for players to connect to.
This is, admittedly, a big win. That said, they're a year late to really use it, which is a serious loss, and the libraries they ship to their developers are hamstringing in terms of the ability to use the net in any way other than a carrier to dedicated servers. To deploy actual socket-aware software would require reinventing the network stuff from the ground up, and the likelihood of Nintendo authorizing such software is near-zero.
Luckily, I'm fixing this.
Proprietary DVD format came from the fact that Nintendo agressively fights pirating, which is a hell of a lot harder to do when off-the shelf DVD-R's don't fit in your machine.
Er. The PS2 format was proprietary too. As far as off the shelf DVD-Rs, sure, the DVD-R Minis fit just fine. The primary problems with piracy in the GameCube are that 1) the discs are encrypted in a fashion that was (thank god) never broken, and 2) the discs are spun in the opposite direction of normal discs, requiring custom firmware, a laser realignment and a new motor for a writer, something well outside of the ability of most pirates.
By the time Mortal Kombat was released, Sega was already semi-dominant. Sega had a commanding lead at the beginning of the 16-bit era, which only closed in the latter years of that generation.
There's argument about this. I won't say you're wrong, but I will say I disagree with you. Many people believe the big nail that started Sega's coffin was the nonsense confusion about the saturn and the sega cd. Nintendo closed the gap primarily on software dominance; people who agree with me tend to believe that Nintendo started closing the gap about two years after the release of the SNES, primarily on total RPG and fighter dominance (go ahead, name two Genesis RPGs other than Sword of Vermillion without looking online for cues. No need to reply to do so; it's a thought exercise.) Many people believe
StoneCypher is Full of BS