#NoteBook Suggestion!
19 messages in this thread
Hey Ben – I just came up with an idea that I think would make NoteBook the
coolest piece of software I know of…
Fir notebook doesn't, is type. I find myself playing with the demo, and
mostly doodling – and when I do want to enter some text, I draw it with the
mouse instead of typing it on the keyboard, because it's more FUN.
Of course, the problem with doing the text with the mouse is that you can't
search, and it takes up so much space – and you just might not be able to
read it when you go back to it.
So, here's what I think would make NoteBook even more really cool: Let me
doodle out my text with the mouse, hilite it, and then click on a button
that will turn it into text, in the current font!
Of course there are a few ways you could do this – asking the user to write
out the alphabet a couple of times, and then analyzing it interactively
with some help from the user, or actually learning from the user's written
text, only asking when something isn't recognized (neural network style, I
believe) would be great.
Just a <cool> idea… 😎
…Steve
Is it even possible? There are some handwriting recognition device & a
notebook called "Notebook" in Japan & those does sounded nifty but its
still not good for practical use.<- &Thats a Hardware + Software
combination thing.
– THANX R.SATOH ->via Whap!
It shouldn't be too hard too do – some of the newer notebooks do it, (the
smaller laptop units), and they do it in software only as far as I know.
Especially if you don't let the user write – you make him print. Then it
should be easy…
..Steve
Steve, pardon me for saying so, but you've lost your marbles. :^)
Ben
Have I? Maybe I have. But I am looking forward to playin with one of
those new notebook computers, with the pen based OS's and software that can
interpret handwriting.
Keyboards are cool, mice are cool, but I _hate_ having to switch between
them. If I could come up with some good way to enter text, even slowly,
with a mouse, I'd do it – but I don't think there is any such thing, aside
from handwriting recognition.
Don't you think it would be cool to write, in handwriting, "2+2=", and hit
evaluate and have the computer write in (in it's own handwriting?) "4"?
…Steve
No – actually, I think it's pretty crippled. What *I* want to see is a
computer I can say "how much is two plus two, squared?" to and get a good
answer.
I think all this stuff about handwriting recognition is a flash in the pan.
Ben
A handwriting interface has a couple of major advantages, as far as I'm
concerned, over both voice input and keyboards.
For one, if you are in a situation where you can only operate the computer
with one hand, such as when standing, or even sitting somewhere you can't
do the laptop thing, you can't really use a keyboard. In some situations
you would have access to the keyboard with one hand – but while I can type
80wpm or so with two hands, I can write with a pen faster than I can type
with one hand.
Voice input isn't going to work until it doesn't depend on sound – picture
an office full of people whose computers are using voice input. 40 people
sitting around talking to their computers – I don't think so.
Of course none of this applies to your product, Notebook, just to the uses
I see for the notebook style computers. in NoteBook, I just think it would
be cool.
…Steve
As an engineer, I can tell you that the ambient noise levels around a voice
input station are not significant problems. Office use isn't waiting for
that; it's been solved for about 15 years, several ways.
I can't help you with *your* typing skills, but I can tell you that I can
type, one handed, a good deal faster than I can write. I can type two
handed so much faster than I can write it's funny.
And I can talk MUCH faster than I can type.
Finally, there is absolutely no chance that we will spend a single second
working on handwriting recognition software for NoteBook. It's completely
out of our league.
Ben
You'd be surprised. The latest Siggraph proceedings have a description of
a handwriting recognition system; it didn't look very complex to me. I was
stunned. The trick is, real-time data about motion and acceleration is
much, much easier to recognize than printed-in-the-past and scanned
OCR-style text. A little training, and you've got it. Even Windows can do
it well – transparently, in fact. I saw a Bondwell machine run Pen Windows
and an off-the-shel word processor without a hitch. Even the programmers
were surprised it worked. (This was Pro Write from SPC.) All we need is
an Amiga pen and a new input software – it would act a lot like a combo
mouse and keyboard. I think this Siggraph paper described a system that had
near-100 percent recognition at real time speeds on a rather ordinary
computer.
Well, great. near 100%, eh? My skeptical nature is mumbling quite loudly
about now… but who knows.
I'm glad that's solved. I don't think it's particularly important, at least
to me, but every technical jump forward is still _forward_.
Now, if they'd only solve the _important_ one, natural language in real
time, eh?
Ben
Ben –
One extremely important use ^C
"writing", IMHO. If this does NOT happen, it'll be a
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That's not what they're talking about, though – they are saying that there
are methods that have been developed to deal with handwritten input at the
time it is written; not _after_ it is written.
As far as I know, there is NO way at this time to reliably recognize
arbitrary script or text without significant training of the recognition
software; even then the end results can be very poor unless there is a very
high degree of uniformity between all the text groups, such as
machine-generated fonts will provide (usually).
What is currently called "OCR" for Optical Character Recognition should
probably be OCG, for Optical Character Guesswork. :^)
I agree that for computers to input masses of old data, OCR (not OCG) is
needed. However, I still don't think that recognizing hadwriting is
particularly useful; and however useful it is now, will probably end
shortly; typing has become one of the basic skills, and it will soon be far
more important than "writing", IMHO. If this does NOT happen, it'll be a
shame, and a symbol of the weakness of our culture.
In any case, we have no plans to add OCG or WR (Writing Recognition) to the
NoteBook. A better thing to do would be to use an external program to
recognize the data you need looked at (if indeed such s/w ever becomes
available) and then feed the resulting ASCII file into NoteBook via the
text import.
Ben
Actually, the thousand-dollar commercial packages for the PC work rather
well, at the 98 percent level or better.
Ben,
On the TV program 'First Look' the other night, they showed a demo of a
notebook size computer that had a digitizer pad type surface and screen (no
pop-tilt/up screen)… it recognized handwritten commands, in realtime. I
can't remember what it was called, but it's supposed to be available
shortly, for $4,500.
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Did you mean your comments (about there being no way to reliably recognize
arbitray script/text w/o training) to apply to OCR *and* the pen-mouse
systems, or just OCR? I suspect just to OCR, because there have been
several pretty successful 'handwriting' recognition systems available for
over a year now….
I played with, for about 3/4 an hour, one of them. at a trade show. PC
based technology. The entire computer looked like a 8.5×11 notebook, with a
flat screen LCD pad covering one side. It was running several custom apps,
as well as a dBase interface. It recognized my 'printing' right off the
bat with probably 95% accuracy, and by the time I was finished it was close
to 100% (ie. I trained myself to 'print' more precisely). Lots of others
used it easily too. All in all, I was very impressed. Sure would love to
have a machine like that with Amiga hardware!
–jp–seattle–
lack Belt Systems 76004,1771
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Steve, I can type a whole lot faster than I can write with a pen — that
is, if you want the end product to be readable by other humans. <grin>
-sja
It's very cool. I have some friends that are working on things like that,
and they gave me a demo a few months ago. I was really surprised that it
would even interpret really bad handwriting. The gizmo they had me
writing on was a flat screen with a pen. Very interesting.
Steve