[58] in bcs-newton
Re: Newton Transcription Rate
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Albert Willis)
Wed Mar 24 02:23:32 1993
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 02:02:33 EST
From: awillis@MIT.EDU (Albert Willis)
To: bcs-newton@world.std.com
> From: nanis@ll.mit.edu (Jeff Nanis)
> Subject: Newton Transcription Rate
>
> One of my biggest questions regarding Newton is how fast
> it will be able to recognize handwriting. Is it going to digest
> 3-4 word/chunks (i.e. "Lunch Jane Tues") or will it support note-
> taking at meetings and classes? As a non-speed typist, I want a
> way to replace the old notepad/notebook without having a keyboard
> (or the "barrier" of a flip-up screen). It would be extremely
> useful to have all my notes stored electronically.
I was in a group that saw a Newton demo. People in the group mentioned
the speed issue. We were told that the speed of recognizing handwriting
had to be slowed down, because it bothered people in usability tests.
From what we were told, it was able to recognize words as fast as they
were written.
I mentioned that folks ought to be able to determine for themselves what
the speed should be. I was then asked if I thought that should be a
user-adjustable option. I said yeah, I thought it should be an option
and that I should be able to access the option from some kind of control
panel. They wrote the idea down. We'll soon know what they did.
> Of course,
> the other question is whether the initial memory will hold
> several hours worth of notes before needing to be dumped to
> a bigger machine.
So far, we've heard nothing about how much stuff can be put in a Newton
before you have to dump it to something else. Or start throwing stuff in
the trash. Or buying PCMCIA cards with lots of RAM on them.
> It was hard to tell from the original MacWeek/World/User
> articles just what Newton's capabilities in this area will be.
> If anyone knows anything about this, please let me know.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeff Nanis
> MIT Lincoln Lab
Al Willis
Director, BCS Newton PDA Group
