Handwriting Recognition PDA

Other Unique Engineering Ideas
No keyboard, no mouse. Instead, you have an LCD screen and a stylus. Unlike most PDA screens, the tablet screen is not touch-sensitive. It only responds to the EMR (Electromagnetic Resonance) stylus.

1. Description

2. Why

3. How

4. Future Trends

5. Related Links

Description

When the first Apple Newton hit the market back in the early 90’s, people were astonished by the handwriting to text recognition capabilities; it really made us understand the possibilities of these little computer gadgets we call PDAs. Till this day handwriting recognition software keeps evolving with features and supporting even the sloppiest handwriting.This is hugely important, because it means you can rest your hand on the screen itself. There's no need for the wasted palm-rest space found on most laptops. Another point is that tablet screens are more accurate and responsive than say PDA touch screens. Handwriting recognition has a better chance of working, because the computer has more detail to work on

Why

The super low-end Palm Zire 21 is cheaper because it has a black and white display, lower screen resolution and doesn't have much memory or an expansion slot. Why are other Palm OS PDAs generally a bit cheaper than Pocket PCs? They often have somewhat slower processors and less memory. That doesn't mean they're slow, rather the Palm OS is a highly optimized and low frills OS that doesn't need much horsepower to run.All Palm OS and Pocket PC PDAs have rechargeable lithium ion batteries. Palm PDAs used to run on two AAA batteries several years ago, but the demands of today's fast processors and color displays are too much for AAAs to handle. Lithium Ion batteries vary in capacity, but most standard batteries are around 1,000 mAh. These batteries last an average of two years before they need to be replaced.Both Palm OS and Pocket PC PDAs have handwriting recognition and on screen keyboards too. Palm OS PDAs use Graffiti handwriting recognition, and you'll enter characters block printing style, with some letters being written differently than "normal" pen on paper style. This means you'll have to learn the letters of the Graffiti alphabet, but this only takes about an hour.

How

Converts your stylus strokes into letters, numbers, and punctuation. You can write directly onto the screen of the application which you're using, with no need for a keyboard. MobileWrite works with your calendar, address book, memo sheet, and all Palm OS applications. With its standard set of characters, and the ability to write complete words across the entire width of the screen, you can enter data much more easily than you can with the software that comes bundled with many Palm OS devices. MobileWrite's user-friendly interface lets you concentrate on your work, instead of worrying about how to do your data entry. For example, there are four ways that you can write an upper-case "A".With MobileWrite, it's easy to correct your work. Simply tap on the character that you'd like to change, and the program will display alternate characters that you can select. Choose the correct character, and the program fixes your text.The latest devices, running Palm OS 5.2 or newer feature Graffiti 2, which uses a natural print alphabet. It's based on a software product called Jot. You can buy Jot separately for pre- OS 5.2 Palms if you prefer it to the original Graffiti. Both systems work well. The Clié UX50, TH37 and TH55 also come with handwriting recognition software called Decuma. Decuma is a natural language input system that allows you to print words or even sentences in the same fashion you'd print on paper. Pocket PCs offer 3 different handwriting recognition options:

  • Block Recognizer, which is the same as Graffiti (great for long time Palm users who switch to Pocket PC),

  • Character Recognizer, which uses natural alphabet printing similar to Jot and Graffiti 2, and

  • Transcriber which allows you to write in cursive/script.

The first two work well, and Transcriber does a very good job, though it isn't as accurate.

Future Trends

The iPAQ 5555 and Toshiba e805 are the only Pocket PCs with 128 megs of built-in memory, while most mid-priced Pocket PCs have 64 megs of RAM. The Pocket PC OS is based on MS Windows, so it's resource demands are higher, and it needs all that processor speed and memory to run speedily.

Keywords

Tablet PC,  Universal symbolic handwriting recognition system, pen-style stylus, Penreader software.

Related Articles

Related Links