[NTLK] Siri and handwritten input

[Jim Witte]

On Oct 14, 2011, at 12:00 PM, newtontalk-request at newtontalk.net wrote:
> a screen that gets triggered by the heel of a hand as easily as it does with a fingertip or iPad stylus. Writing on it is a hand-cramping experience, having to suspend your hand over the glass to avoid unintended input. Otherwise, it would be the perfect note-taker.

	Except that the iPad screen can apparently track 11 different inputs at once (look at the Matt Gemmel’s iPad Multi Touch sample).  A commenter for the YouTube video said that the pad itself can track an infinite number of points, and that 11 is only imposed by software, although i can’t help but think there is some limit in the touchscreen hardware.  Presumably, a driver could manage to filter out extraneous touches that appear at a point sufficiently different from the pen tip (and sufficiently large), once it had identified at pen touch rather than finger touch.  A pen touch would be smaller than a finger touch, and if the hardware can detect the approximate size of the touch as well as the location.  There may already be this functionality somewhere in the multitouch driver, presumably by setting up a tracking zone outside of which input is ignored, although a handwriting driver would have to be able to continually change that zone in order to exclude extraneous input, as well as still deal with any “noise” input that might occur in spite of it.

	Will InkWell work with the Magic Trackpad?  I presume the drivers for it and iPad might be identical.

> just for quick scribbles like "meet Joe for lunch on Tuesday". I can't be speaking things like this in my busy open-plan office. Then again, we all though hands-free calling

	It might actually be easier to do that (write the command) rather than speak it, as the human brain is able to some degree to operate different communication modes in parallel - it seems like it would be easier to be listening to a meeting and simultaneously scribble that still following what you’re listening to than to speak the command while still following the auditory input (not to mention that speaking reduces auditory sensitivity via a physical reflex action between the mouth bones and small bones of the ear..)

> "That guy that talks to himself." -- "Oh, HIM!”
> Nowadays that wouldn't help wouldn't it?

	Heh, a few weeks ago I was at the grocery store and saw a woman pushing a cart down the aisle, “talking to herself”.  Then I saw the BT headset, or maybe just inferred that it had to be there..  Strange though - I wonder if people go through a phase after getting a BT headset where it just “feels odd” to be talking on it with minimal visual evidence to anyone else that you’re on a phone?

Jim

Jim