Day: July 16, 2005

IBM SHARK Shorthand: “The following factors make SHARK shorthand particularly powerful.

Memorability: A person’s ability to recognize, memorize and draw patterns is remarkable. SHARK shorthand capitalizes on this remarkable human capability. Gesturing patterns with a stylus is particularly fluid, dexterous and fun.

Pattern Recognition: SHARK shorthand uses modern digital processing capability to compute the statistical constraints represented by the legitimate sokgraphs on the stylus keyboard. Our pattern recognition technology takes advantage of these constraints and gives the user the maximum flexibility in sokgraph gesturing. An intended word can still be entered although irrelevant letters between intended letters are crossed or even if some of the letters in a word are missed in the stylus trace on the keyboard.”

This is the site discussed in the post a bit further down.

“The problem is how to comfortably enter text onto the screens of pocket-size devices. Anyone who uses a cell phone to laboriously tap out text messages, or a BlackBerry to respond to e-mail, knows what I’m talking about – – those tiny keypads cause thumb strain. At the same time, software that attempts to recognize either speech or regular handwriting isn’t reliable.
SHARK in its current form – – demonstrated so far on full-size Windows XP notebooks – – puts a small grid on the screen. The grid shows a cluster of letters in what appears to be random order.
To write a word, you put the stylus on the first letter of the word and then drag the stylus to draw a line through the alphabet cluster, touching every letter in the word. When you lift up the stylus after hitting the last letter, SHARK figures out what word you want and displays it on the screen.”

(read the original article)

I figured I’d do a Mondrian for my wife. Now… if I got her data right, this version should look the same as one I’ll do later when I can get her to sit down and do one for herself. I’ll post her version later.