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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."
You can code in Python for Windows CE 3.0+ (2.11+ maybe?), and specifically Pocket PC 2000, 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, 2003 SE and presumably 2005. There is a subset of Python, called Pippy, available for Palm OS. The WinCE port is pretty much a full port of Python; Pippy is very much stripped down. There are also the Zaurus Linux PDAs, which can run Python, though it's not as useful for writing full-on apps as it is on Pocket PC, at least within the Qtopia GUI last time I checked.
Perl too on PocketPC/WinCE; there's even Perl/Tk support. Works pretty well.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
A pretty basic SDK is provided. C and C++ are your options. Feel free to compile Python for it!
See www.dsdev.org for all the DS development info you need.
Welcane aur new hondwriting recogmition ouerlonds!
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.