Re: [NTLK] Redefining the Newton

Hello,

--- On Sat, 1/10/09, Michael J. Hußmann <michael@michael-hussmann.de> wrote:

> For one thing, Apple had licensed Paragraph's cursive
> recognizer "as is", and it happened to be able to learn from
> mistakes. The print recognizer, on the other hand, was an in-house
> development.

I must confess that when I think of the Newton's HWR, the Print Recognizer tends to be overshadowed by the work that ParaGraph did, at least in my own mind. I had forgotten entirely that the Print Recognizer itself was the result of the work of others (Larry Yaeger, Brandyn Webb & Michael Kaplan) in Apple's Advanced Technology Group. Thanks for reminding me of that.

> Btw, in my experience the print recognizer wasn't just
> "good enough", it was better than the cursive recognizer. For my own
> handwriting anyway. After having upgraded my MP 120 to NOS 2.0 (the first
> version of the OS to include the print recognizer), the recognition rate
> went up sharply.

True, the Print Recognizer is very good, especially in view of what was considered State of the Art at the time of its development.

It's just that even a device that flawlessly recognizes your handwriting, say, 85% of the time can still prove frustrating when you have to stop and correct mistakes (even 15% of the time) whilst you're trying to "get it all down" before you lose your train of thought.

And I suppose if you're used to using a keyboard with the Newton, the relative slowness of handwriting is all the more jarring. But perhaps the future of inputing information into computing devices like the Newton lies somewhere *between* the keyboard and HWR?

Do the tendons in the human hand use different amounts of electricity when they are relatively relaxed versus fully extended? I ask this because if there were some way to measure the muscle tension in our fingers, that *might* be a way to allow a sort of "keyboard" to be used without the space restrictions that might normally preclude the use of a physical keyboard (i.e. when you're standing in line with no flat surfaces handy).

Think about it: your fingers/thumb can have three states: fully extended, partially extended, and fully retracted. If the condition of the fingers/thumb under these three conditions could be matched up with a particular character, you'd have the ability to "type" 30 characters merely by flexing your fingers, wouldn't you?

When I move my fingers, I notice my tendons flex in my wrists. So is there something that could be worn around the wrist that could monitor the tendons that pass through the wrist and send those signals to the Newton via Bluetooth?

Best,

James Fraser

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Received on Sat Jan 10 22:41:13 2009