Handwriting Recognition Software for the DS
Another tool has been added to the DS developer’s chest. Yesterday it was announced that Zi’s Decuma handwriting recognition software has been licensed by Nintendo to allow DS developers to use this software in their DS projects. Though I haven’t used a Palm PDA (or any PDA) for some time, I always thought that their Graffiti hand writing recognition software was pretty cool. I am not sure how Decuma compares; however the idea of being able to chat via writing letters on the touch screen instead of tapping them on a virtual keyboard sounds pretty cool. Now, if Nintendo would only fill us on on the communication details for their Nintendo WiFi Connection network we might be able to know how meaningful this software might be. I’m hoping for an incredibly immersive handheld MMO announcement with a simple natural writing communication system. How long do you think I will have to wait?
[source: Zi]
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27. October 2005 at 10:53
I was monumentally depressed by the classy looking DS calendar, which offers no ability to scribble in an appointment or two (Yes, Nintendo, I know built in flash memory is too expensive). Also, the alarm clock was just silly. A good chunk of the DS market are responsible adults with appointments to keep, and a release of a cart with PDA/Web browsing functionality built in would make it into my DS bag on day one. I’m sure high school and younger kids would also have some interest in this as a way to keep track of their increasingly complicated lives (not to mention looking cool doing it).
I’ve been reading up on Decuma lately, and it seems to put Graffiti to shame. It works by recognizing an entire word at a time, instead of a letter at a time. The bad news is, I couldn’t see any examples of Decuma running on anything as slow as the 66 MHz DS processor.
Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn’t seem to like the idea of the DS as a communication device, which could lead to the spread of Bad Words or Online Jerks. The thing about Pico Chat, is the interactions fall into the range of parental intervention, and make it very difficult for a stalker or griefer to take advantage of the system. You could end up waiting quite a while for an online chat system based on handwriting recognition. I think the preset kid friendly responses you saw in Mario Kart are more likely.