Request Handwrite Recognition

Hello Entourage Edge and fellow users, greetings from Costa Rica!

A BIG community here is interested in the Entourage Edge, also some friends in the USA. One nice feature would be Handwrite Recognition, something similar to the Palm Graffiti for example, or basically when you are handwriting, the ability to convert it to a computer font... Sometimes when one is on a hurry, you just handwrite, but later if you can to put it on a text document basically you have to re-write everything... With handwrite recognition you'll enter the text just once, and will be ready to paste it on a word document, select the words, etc etc... Hopefully I'm explaining well!

Best Regards,


Teo.

Yes, I think handwriting recognition would be great for the eDGe. I *think* I saw that they were going to look into it, but am not positive. I liked the Palm Graffiti, it worked pretty well with minimum strokes. But, plain old handwriting recognition would be good, too ;-).

ditto. The iRex iLiad does handwriting recognition in place of keyboard input. Works fairly well. I'd hope the edge may do it faster.

This would be amazing for when you're taking notes. If enTourage really wants to be a student-focused company, then this would make their product so much better. Yes, the regular handwriting on the e-ink is good to have and all, but there are some things that would be so much better if they had the handwriting recognition.

I have to agree that the option to convert handwritten text into type would only make this product that much better. This option would be beneficial to both the student and business community users.

- Steed

This is definitely something to look at long term, but I'm not holding my breath. I've owned tablet PCs for years and it's taken until now (Windows 7) to have a really good handwriting recognition system. I've had Macs for a few years now, too, and I can tell you that not only do they lag behind in capabilities with handwriting recognition (Inkwell), but the real difference is that they simply have no good software for using this feature even when it does recognize your handwriting. They technically *have* handwriting recognition, but there's no program in which that feature is integrated enough to even be remotely useful. So, be careful what you wish for - Mac OS has handwriting support, but nowhere to really use it.

The eDGe is in one way a step ahead because Mac OS, for its existing handwriting recognition, doesn't even have a basic Journal type app right now. I'm going to venture a guess that the eDGe's Journal app is practically taken right from xournal, which is the open source linux version of MS Journal that my Nokia N810 internet tablet uses and has been around for at least a couple of years already. The two function almost identically (there's no handwriting support for xournal, either) so enTourage could probably have build off of that existing (and extremely well-functioning, stable) piece of software focusing on modification or existing software for their product instead of starting over from scratch. xournal on the N810 has zero lag and is almost identical to the experience of using MS Journal on a Tablet PC. It truly is one of the best, most polished apps for the N810, and if enTourage was starting from that, they had a real leg up.

So, the problem is multi-fold, and while it's absolutely where this device needs to go, I just want to make sure people realize that this is not something that is likely to happen quickly. You won't really get the end-user experience you want until not only does the OS support handwriting recognition, but it has smooth, kick-***, useful apps that make use of this feature.

All good points, cursive text translation is very tough, especially with script like mine. A more modest and extremely useful goal would be the ability to search the handwriting in the journal. I can do this with my Livescribe Pulse pen and it works very well.

http://www.inkmarksoftware.com/page2.html

We need something like this, so I can search my notes.

I don't want to have to put a sentence description for each note I make, I just want to search them.

Originally Posted by rakista

http://www.inkmarksoftware.com/page2.html

We need something like this, so I can search my notes.

I don't want to have to put a sentence description for each note I make, I just want to search them.

I was able to install it and get it to work. Fun to play with but not ready for prime time. It would take a while to learn all the gestures and this only works on the LCD side. The recognition was a bit slow and not quite as good as on the old Palm but it is promising. I used it in the note taking application. Once installed you hold the stylus down on the screen and a dialogue box opens asking you if you want the Android keyboard or MobileWrite. When you choose MobileWrite a small window appears and you start scribbling a way. I found the file on the mediafire site.

I didn't think this was a big deal until I used it in a meeting today to try and take notes. The points previously mentioned above about search are really problematic. I know that Grafitti is a patented technology, but I would love to be able to use some sort of short hand to input text and then have it converted to clean text.

It just reminds me of the Simpsons episode where two bullies are talking and one says, "Hey, take a note on your Newton. "BEAT UP MARTIN". The Newton translated it to EAT UP MARTHA!!!

Crossing my fingers!!!

This may be more trouble than it's worth, but One Note recognizes handwriting with moderate success and can move that text to word. If those notes really need to be searchable you can send them to your computer, print to one note, convert, save in PDF format and send back to your Edge. There is an app called Printer Anywhere which may help to do this as well.

A future possibility, http://www.nuance.com/t9/t9write.asp
It appears to be available now
Video http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...-android-video

Here is another possibility...
http://mobiletextinput.com/index.php

We need something like this for the E-Ink Side:

http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=quickscript

"Quickscript is Axiotron’s new handwriting recognition application for Mac® users that offers accurate recognition of cursive handwriting, hand-printed characters and isolated characters in 26 different languages."

Best Regards,


Teo.

I recently asked them about whether they are saving the strokes and this is what they answered:

Hi Fred,

Yes, the journal is created on a stroke by stroke basis.

Thank you,
Tech Support

Which is good since it means that if handwritting ever gets implemented it would work on our current notes.