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Quickies — MIT's Intelligent Sticky Notes

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the smarter-than-your-average-sticky dept.

Iddo Genuth writes to mention that MIT researchers have made their first pass at bringing the common yellow post-it note into the digital age. Using a combination of artificial intelligence, RFID, and ink recognition, the team hopes to make the digital version as ubiquitous as possible. "The Quickie application not only allows users to browse their notes, but also lets users search for specific information or keywords. Using a freely available commonsense knowledge engine and computational AI techniques, the software processes the written text and determines the relevant context of the notes, categorizing them appropriately. "The system uses its understanding of the user's intentions, content, and the context of the notes to provide the user with reminders, alerts, messages, and just-in-time information" - said the inventors. Additionally, each Quickie carries a unique RFID tag, so that it can be easily located around the house or office. Therefore, users can be sure never to lose a bookmarked book or any other object marked with a Quickie."

5 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. We have quickies in my office by nuzak · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently they're holding them over at the Human Resources department. I asked the receptionist for a Quickie and she had me sent there.

    --
    Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
  2. Sometimes simplicity... by Hangtime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    is best. I have to write my sticky on a touch-sensitive pad which will then need to be transferred to the PC, undergo handwriting recognition and AI to try to ascertain what the heck I meant which will then try to organize that information.

    Or, I can continue using my sticky notes and organizing them on my cube wall (a much larger surface and higher resolution then my 19 inch monitor), freely moving them from one place to another, changing meaning through organization without having to worry about manipulating them on a computer.

    Forgive me but I believe this is a tool in search of a problem that does not exist.

    1. Re:Sometimes simplicity... by evanbd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Please stop repeating that myth. Snopes says you're wrong.

      For those too lazy to read the link: Fisher spent their own money on the development, and the results were far better than pencils. Pencil leads break off and create an electrical and fire hazard, not to mention making dust. These are real problems in free fall that aren't present on the ground. Sorry, but your intuition of what works well on the ground will not translate in any meaningful way to free fall.

  3. I was going to post "That's so stupid"... by bill_kress · · Score: 4, Interesting

    but everyone seems to have beaten me to it.

    So how about instead of bitching I try to come up with some constructive criticism. How about the opposite, a little sticky-note printer that will spit out whatever is highlighted on your current screen and apply a little glue to the back side on the way out, ready for immediate deployment.

    The form-factor should be such that it can fit into a hard-drive slot on your PC--and it can slide open like a CDROM for refilling consumables.

    It should work both vertically and horizontally.

    There, run with it and make your $millions.

  4. MIT by El+Cabri · · Score: 4, Informative

    People at MIT are notoriously good at creating buzz around the concepts, demos, protypes and inventions that they come up with, especially at the Media Lab. Unfortunately, like everything that happens in academia, the signal to noise ratio is what it is and most of it has no future, sometimes for blatant reasons that one doesn't need to be a very sharp V.C. to figure out. Unfortunately that creates the impression that they are really a bunch of clowns that come up with useless stuff on a regular basis.