Tablet PC handwriting recognition disappoints

The full features and limitations of the new pen-based Windows Tablet PC platform became apparent this month, when Microsoft and several industry partners previewed the operating system in Seattle.

Microsoft has spent three years developing the software, which includes digital ink technology that claims to 'promote ink to a first-class citizen'..

Companies, including Acer, Toshiba and Motion Computing, renewed their commitment to create lightweight tablets, and vendors estimated a battery life of between four and six hours. HP announced a deal to produce a 1GHz Tablet PC later this year built round a low-drain Transmeta chip, while Acer vowed to include 802.11b Wifi technology, IEEE 1394 Firewire and USB into its Tablet.

Microsoft's demonstrators showed a Bezier curve feature that smoothed lines drawn directly on the screen with a radio-based stylus - they stressed that the digital ink technology is object-oriented, treating each pen stroke as an extensible software object. In addition to storing information about the size and shape of the pen stroke, the Tablet PC operating system allows application-defined information to be stored.

For example, a software developer may choose to log who drew a picture or wrote a word and when. This would be useful for collaborative white boarding applications. Penstroke analysis enables whole handwritten words and pictures to be selected rather than individual brush strokes.

But while the pen strokes were smooth and fast, the handwriting recognition was far from accurate, with many demonstrators having to correct their input. But Microsoft executives were eager to play down the technology: "It's not perfect - your mileage may vary," said development manager Alexander Gounares. Instead, staff talked up the benefits of keeping your notes in handwritten "ink" form and searching on them using fuzzy logic techniques.

Microsoft also demonstrated the Windows Journal, a note-taking application enabling users to annotate documents, use templates and add text. An accompanying application, Windows Sticky Notes, creates handwritten notes that otherwise work much like Notes in Microsoft Outlook. They can be sent via email or turned into Outlook tasks.

A Microsoft Office add-on will be available as a free download, allowing users to take advantage of digital ink. This will allow them to draw directly into Powerpoint, or write comments in Word by hand.

Third-party vendors were able to promise little more than basic pen compatibility, in which the pen would substitute for the mouse, by the launch date this October. The Tablet XP products will be the first Windows clients to be fully compatible with Microsoft's .Net web services system out of the box.
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