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Linux Handwriting Recognition
Dark Paladin writes "Cnn.com is reporting that Communication Intelligence Corp. and Middlesoft is working on Linux based handwriting software that will work in handhelds, Internet appliances, and have GTK and QT hooks. Now we can move from carpal-tunnel to writers cramp. " Now I'm curious, what matters more to people, handwriting or voice recognition?
What is this doing here? It never appeared on the main page even.
But, all-in-all, this is pretty cool. Maybe we'll finally see Palm-style Open Souce handhelds.
And, if you're wondering, an open souce handheld would be great. Why settle for what Palm (or Microsoft) thinks is good for you when you can write your own look and feel?! Just think, you could probably add compatibility for both Palm apps and Wince apps. Now all we need is some good touchscreen support, and we're set! (Or is there already touchscreen support I don't know about?)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
The other reason why handwriting is better than voice recognition, despite the possible and immediate use in handhelds, is that we seem to be fairly saturated with voice technologies, but nobody has created a decent OCR package. (Unless, of course, SANE has done it and I haven't noticed.) Getting--not *just OCR*--but handwritintg recognition, is something to be pushed. Hearing about the US post office using stuff for sorting is one thing; it's totally another to have advanced stuff on your own machine.
ultimatly, i think that voice recognition will become commonplace, but that there will always be a place for a good hand written letter. but will anyone be able to tell the difference? Theres a big difference between dictated tone (ie what you say) and what you want to be written. A letter usually sounds different when you read it than when you are spoken to by that person. not only will voice recognition software need to become more accurate... but it'll also need to have some kind of filter to 'formalize' dictations. I think :)
There are three reasons for handwriting recognition I can see off the top of my head:
For English-speakers, voice recognition and OCR might seem like neat gimmicks, but they're going to be *vital* to bring information technology into places like rural China, where people are lucky to be literate in their own language, nevermind learning a foreign phonetic alphabet and awkward keyboard input methods.
Check out China's up-and-coming domestic computer maker Legend at http://www.legend-holdings.co m/eng/press_centre6.html... Their basic model includes a keyboard, but more centrally - a writing tablet.
I'm glad to see Linux-based voice and writing recognition efforts. Imagine this - Linux bringing the Internet to 1+ billion more people...
The only thing a handwriting input device buys me is the possibility of a smaller machine. Voice recognition, on the other hand, gives me computer input in contexts where my hands are busy - such as while driving. It also allows for an even smaller machine - since the input interface can be a pinhole rather than a surface at least the size of a Postit note. And I can usually speak faster than I can write.
But while voice recognition may strike me as more enabling than handwriting recognition, it's not an either-or issue. They each add a unique capability. Pick either one, and I'm sure there will be a number of applications where it's a better fit than any other input mode.
Handwriting recognition seems like the ideal input mode, for instance, for paper computers. Imagine a pad of Postits, each running PalmOS. B-)
Also: If they ever come up with a handwriting recognition program that can read my writing better than I can, I've got a lot of old notes around here that I wish I could read...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
At this point, voice recognition and speech dicatation have gotten good enough for certain narrow applications. Neither by itself is going to be accurate enough for general use because both technologies need to be targeted to a specific context and vocabulary to work well.
On the other hand, if you combine speech recognition with a system of gestures and written jottings for doing corrections on the fly and for "nudging" the interpretive engine in one direction or another, you can probably increase the speed at which fully-corrected speech or text gets input by several orders of magnitude. Such a system gets rid of the need for stopping dictation/writing to go into an "edit" mode.
Current products show a strange myopia--designs that do handwriting or speech recognition as though users are unable to do both at once, partly an outgrowth of these technologies' origins as accessibility tools. That is, while it's terrific that someone with no mobility can use ViaVoice to fully operate any software other than perhaps a raster imaging package, this approach has made these technologies more tedious and linear than they need to be.
Indeed, such a thing may not even need handwriting recognition to get most of the benefit. I'd love to see what could be done to speech dictation performance with a gesture interface implemented on a pen tablet.