Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

I just returned from the Symbian Smartphone Show in London. Nestled among the exhibitors showing off their coolest software on the coolest phone hardware were a couple of N770's on a hands-on display. I was naturally sucked in.

The vendor was Tegic -- the maker of T9 software that enables typing words quickly on mobile phones through the numeric keypad. I'm sure many of you have seen/used it. The display was showing off a new product -- XT9 -- on phones and several N770's. It looked great, was very fast, and recognized all the crappy handwriting I threw at it. I was intentionally bad, and it still figured out what I wanted, while giving me very educated guesses as I wrote my words. Just like T9 on a mobile phone.

So I pestered several sales droids at the booth about getting the software so I could run it. Finally, one said: "You can't get the software. It should be a part of the OS in..." and she turned to a Nokia rep next to her "...2007. Right?" At which point, the Nokia guy just smiled and said "I can't say."

Is new handwriting recognition on the way for OS2007? If it is XT9 like the demo I used, it would be BIG stuff! What an improvement!

You can find out more about XT9 at Tegic's Web site: http://www.tegic.com/products/xt9.asp. Nothing I can read mentions the 770, but we can always hope.

Anyone else hear anything?

-F

Cool, If they already have it running on the N770 then its almost a given that it will be in a future OS version!
I mean, why go to all the effort of porting to the 770 otherwise?

This is great news if it's true. Makes one wonder what other goodies are coming in the next OS upgrade.

hopes
 

Reading their info says it also handles speech recognition. I'm guessing you didn't see that, or it wasn't enabled/available on the 770, eh?

Personally, I'd like to also have the ability to scrawl directly on the screen (perhaps hitting a toggle key), without having to popup/down the input area, and have it propogate to the proper entry field on the screen. That alone would increase speed and functionality.. imo.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

Now, darnit!

It was very, very fast? You sure those 770s had the same guts as ours?!!?

Before we go into a war of words on this subject: What exactly do you know about HWR algorithms?

It's also worth noting that a 250MHz ARM is a *fast* processor; maybe not compared with a 3GHz Core Duo, but it's easy to forget how much such a thing *can* do.

No kidding. I am amazed by how fast everything works on my newly acquired 770. Not at all what I expected, the video playback especially being better than I thought.

(then again, I still occasionally use a PIII 500 Mhz with 128ram and Win98... :) )

<Time for another gratuitous Newton insert>

The Newton MessagePad 2X00 manages to do near-faultless cursive HWR (I use it for English, Duch and French texts) with a 162 MHz ARM, 4 MB of RAM and 8 MB of ROM. Add to that that the Newton's operating system is basically interpreted, not compiled and you can easily see how processing power is not really paramount in HWR.

Writing good code OTOH is, and unfortunately that appears to be a rapidly fading art...

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

So, is XT9 Handwriting Recognition already part of the new OS or is it coming later?

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

While I'm of course always excited to learn about new technologies, I am not at all happy to learn that this is apparently planned for the N800.

Why? It's closed source, proprietary code again. When the original 770 came out and included some proprietary parts, my expectation was that they were used only for a quick start to fill in the gaps. I hoped that Nokia would either actively support free projects to supply alternatives or develop those alternatives and make them available as parts of the free platform.

With OS2007, it seems we're moving to the other side very quickly: First they announced Skype where they should have improved GTalk and SIP-handling. Now they include patented XT9 technology instead of trying to imprvove existing GPLed projects. What will be next?

Again, I'm not trying to say XT9 isn't a good thing. It certainly is. Such as MS Windows is a good operating system. I only wonder if the N800 maybe not only introduces technical changes, but also a change of concept: will the N900 be a closed, non-hackable box such as any other device?.

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

HWR could be good, but I for one isn't much interested in the T9 guesswork system. I know most people love it on their phones, but to me T9 has always been completely in the way, what it guesses at is never even close and it gets impossible to write anything. It's the first thing I disable when I get a new phone. I can enter text quickly one character by one anyway.
(If I ever wanted a mechanism like that then it should be like how abbrev-mode works in Emacs.)

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

XT9 is not tap-tap, it's a full-blown handwriting recognition engine that allows you to write, in cursive, everywhere on the screen. It's a bit like PenOffice for Windows or -- if you're one of the Sacred Few who've experienced it -- the Newton's handwriting recognition.

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

I feel your Open Source pain. :D

However, do note that there exist exactly zero -- as in: none -- Open Source handwriting recognition engines for Linux -- or for any other platform that I know of (warez don't count). The best ever made for Linux was Xstroke, a copy of Graffiti2, and that one's essentially dead.[*]

If I have to choose between no Open Source solution and an excellent (from what I've been told) Closed Source one... Well, let's just say I won't be in dilemma for more than a couple of microseconds.
____
[*] It's a pity, really. I'm on the Xstroke mailing list, and a while back someone (Dr. Limburg IIRC) proposed he'd merge his own HWR neural net algorythms into Xstroke, thereby transforming it into a real HWR solution. I haven't heard from him since that one message.

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

Oh, almost forgot: Is XT9 in the N800 or not? 'cuz If it's in, I'll buy one the next second.

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

Wish I could answer but I don't know that one. I'll post as soon as (if) I find out.

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

I'm a militant extremist. I don't have Flash on my desktop PC and don't play MP3 files. :D
So for me it's absolutely clear I'd rather have no solution than a proprietary one.

I only wanted to issue my concerns, though. I'm not going to make you delete your *.mp3 and *.doc and *.wmv :rolleyes:

BTW, I didn't know that all free HWR projects are dead? I don't have the slightest idea about this kind of software, but when Google returned promising results on "handwriting recognition gpl", I thought it's only a matter of a few fin(n)ish(ing) touches. Well, it's a cruel world.

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

Apparently XT9 HWR is not in the N800, according to sources on #maemo.

Re: Rumor Mill: XT9 Handwriting Recognition in OS2007?
 

Figures... :mad: