[202] in bcs-newton
Newton Handwriting Recognition
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Celeste)
Tue Aug 24 15:12:35 1993
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 15:13:24 -0400
From: Eric Celeste <efc@wonder.mit.edu>
To: ron@pedi.ama.ttu.edu (Ron Jones)
Cc: bcs-newton@world.std.com, white@nest.enet.dec.com
Reply-To: efc@MIT.EDU
> Can someone tell me if the Newton MessagePad deciphers only PRINTED
> LETTERS or does it decipher CURSIVE handwriting.
Newton can translate both printed letters and cursive handwriting. The
Newton recognition software does not just look at the image of the character
you've written on its pad... it also pays attention to the order and timing
of the strokes of your handwriting. In my informal observation of friends
trying out the Newton, I've actually found it to be _more_ reliable at
translating cursive writing than print. My personal theory on this is that
we tend to learn cursive a little more formally, and the very fact that you
write all the letters in a continuous flow imposes a more predictable order
and timing on the strokes.
> I read somewhere that Newton interprets more word-by-word rather than
> letter-by-letter...
Newton's recognition software can be forced to turn any word you write on
the pad into a word from its word list (a kind of dictionary), or it can be
set to turn words into words that are not neccessarily in its word list. The
latter would be more like "character" recognition, though Newton still tries
pretty hard to generate words it knows about. So, actually, Newton's
recognition software can interpret either way.
...Eric
