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Nokia Smart Phone Recognizes Handwriting

Posted by timothy on Wed Nov 03, 2004 07:57 AM
from the needs-to-recognize-snacks dept.
Communications Handhelds Hardware
San writes "Nokia on Tuesday announced it plans to start selling a new smart phone capable of handwriting recognition. The 7710 model features a touch screen, pen input, a digital camera, an Internet browser, a radio, video playback and streaming and recording capabilities, the company said."
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  • In usual Nokia style (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:00AM (#10709355)

    it looks terrible, if i wanted something clunky like that i would buy a RIM
    SonyEriccson are still the leaders in design its just a shame Nokia couldnt take a few pointers from them and make something nice and functional like the p910i [sonyericsson.com] from SE (has handwriting recog already)

    • use it first (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RMH101 (636144) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:19AM (#10709466)
      i've had an SE P800, a P900 and am now using a Nokia 7610. All run Symbian OS, but the Nokia's *way* better to use. It may look odd, but it does the business with much less mither. One thing they're good at is usability.
    • The one time I tried the HW reckognition on the i910 it did not work well enough to impress me. Having somebody test it who's handwriting (unlike mine) is more than just marginally legable didn't help either.
  • Gee, sounds like an iPod killer [slashdot.org]!

  • ah yes grasshopper... (Score:4, Funny)

    by SuperBanana (662181) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:02AM (#10709367)

    can but recognize it properly grammars?

    (right after I previewed this, Timothy apparently caught it, but the title read "Nokia Smart Phone Recognize Handwriting").

  • I'd rather have voice input (Score:3, Interesting)

    by qIroS (597071) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:02AM (#10709368)
    When using something outside, in the cold, I can't see my handwriting being steady enough for it to read due to shivering or wearing gloves.

    elo, cul8r would probably come out as X$%£%"(*&*(&D

    • I remember watching someone try voice input on their TRS-80 (this is going waaayyy back)... "One... no... one... no! One! NO! ONE! AAARGGGH!" I know things have improved since then, but I'm not sure how accurate you could make it on such a small computing device. And the problem with voice input on a phone is that it's too easy to throw the phone against a wall after it misinterprets you for the hundredth time :-)

      Eric
      How to Detect Firefox [ericgiguere.com]

          • Well, (going my my limited experience doing engineering research papers)

            Plenty of things ARE available on the internet (market research, specs, federal regs, etc) and it's faster sometimes to scour search engines at LEAST to get references to the books you need, rather than excavating in a corner in your university library.

            Though I see what you mean about looking up things that occured before the internet. Hehe
    • I dunno about you, but phones (cellular, cordless, and home) seem to have really gone down in audio quality, at least from the microphone end. I don't know if it's because there's only a tiny hole somewhere up by your cheek with a 12 cent asstastic piezo mic... but while call quality may be on the rise, phone mic quality seems to be in the shitter.

  • Ugh ... No Wi-Fi? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Average_Joe_Sixpack (534373) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:02AM (#10709371)
    No Wi-Fi mentioned in the specs. Is there any technical reason Wi Fi can't be integrated into a cell? Is it a conflict of frequencies?

    • Re:Ugh ... No Wi-Fi? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      no just a conflict of cash
      if they include wifi people will use VOIP and the telecom middlemen wont like that, witness the USA provider crippling phones bluetooth so users have to send their pictures via email or MMS because uncrippled would "conflict with our current business model"

    • Re:Ugh ... No Wi-Fi? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by buro9 (633210) <david@bu r o 9 . c om> on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:07AM (#10709396) Homepage
      conflict of interests... cellphones are subsidised by the phone companies, wi-fi would allow us to email rather than SMS and VOIP rather than phone.

      why would a company subsidise a cell that would cut into their profits?
    • it does do wifi.
      you can cram anything into a cellphone, but past a certain point it's not going to fit in your pocket very easily

  • Jot? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Skuto (171945) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:08AM (#10709400) Homepage
    Hmm, I guess they don't count Jot as handwriting, which is at least on the Sony Ericssons for a while. It's close enough that it tends to "just work". And it's probably more reliable than handwriting recognition. I mean, even as a human I can't decode most peoples handwriting :)

    That said, being a true IT person, I got a P910i with a keyboard, since I can't remember how handwriting was supposed to work, anyway...
    • Hmm, I guess they don't count Jot as handwriting

      Because it isn't handwriting? Jot cannot cope with cursive which I would consider to be a key thing to claiming handwriting recognition.

      Microsoft's PocketPC line have had the transcriber application for years which does cope with cursive.

      Since it also runs on the PocketPC phone edition, you could easily claim that Microsoft were the first with a phone with handwriting recognition.

  • a phone that recognizes handwriting... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Daniel Ellard (799842) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:08AM (#10709402)
    Gee, what's next, a Palm Pilot that includes a phone [palmone.com]?

    Why would you want to write messages when you can simply speak them?

    • Laf, good point. I dont know why this is even considered "new" news. Any touch screen system can be made to "recognize handwriting". Perhaps if it was converting speech to text, then this would be news worthy. Or leavea voicemail and it will automatically be converted to text and emailed to the person.. now that's cool!

      Move along, nothing to see here

    • Re:a phone that recognizes handwriting... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BadDoggie (145310) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:29AM (#10709532) Homepage Journal
      Why would you want to write messages when you can simply speak them?

      SMS messages. Handwriting is faster than input using the often poorly-implemented T9 method. And don't rant about SMS -- it's cheaper than a call, doesn't have to be received immediately, will go out even with the spottiest link, can be stored, and it allows communication when you can't hear or use a telephone (hospital, lecture, concert).

      Text entry is also necessary for storing numbers and personal information in the phone.

      woof.

  • doomed strategy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by carnivore302 (708545) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:09AM (#10709404) Journal
    I think it will become clear that the approach of "put everything in a phone" will be doomed.

    Yes, I'm guilty of buying a too expensive phone that has everything but the kitchen sink. What do I do with the phone? Well... just calling people.

    I've only once used the camera. I've once downloaded a java game (and played it). I've looked at the calender functions but never seem to use them. Yes, I do in fact enjoy a nice ringtone, but hate the whole WAP thing.

    Other people I speak have the same experience - we only use the phone-functionality. Everything else is a waste of money. One thing is for sure, I'll never buy an expensive phone with bells and whistles again.

    I appreciate the fact that companies like Nokia, Ericson, Motorola and Siemens are looking for ways to get more marketshare. But really... aside from better looks and lighter weight the customer doesn't seem to benefit and will eventually realise that.

    • Re:doomed strategy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gmuslera (3436) <gmuslera@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:44AM (#10709627) Homepage Journal
      In the other hand, if you already carry/need a "plain" cell phone, a pda, a digital camera and a mp3 player and even a gps, if you can have all that functionalities in a single device (assumming that do fairly well all of those things and are well integrated) will be better.

      Of course, if you just need a portable device to just talk, then all the extras are not needed and you can choose to buy cheaper/simple phones, but that depend on each people. For me maybe is no use the camera, or ringtones, but be able to access google and other sites, launch a ssh terminal, locate myself in a map to find where i must go and be able to take notes while talking or after are between the things i felt in some moment or another that really needed.

    • Re:doomed strategy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MarkKnopfler (472229) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:45AM (#10709634)
      I really do not agree with that. A smart phone IS a very useful tool if you you actually NEED it. One has to exactly know why one is purchasing the phone. If you do not and you still are purchasing a smart phone you are not a very smart person. This is how I use my phone. FYI I use a gaming console + smartphone combo

      -- I have a few mp3s on it which I can hear when I commuting to work
      -- I sync my calendar/todo with my phone so I exactly know whether I can turn up late for work or not and am in sync with the whole day when I start for work
      -- I play games on it (including FPS)
      -- I use my XHTML browser/GPRS to check my webmail and also catch up on the cricket scores when I am on the move

      As far as I go. my smart phone serves as my mp3 player, my PDA, a web browser and a game deck. It actually benefits me and I think smart phones are good things.
    • Each to their own. I have the Sony Ericsson P900 and I spend most of my time:
      • Reading books I downloaded from Gutenberg [gutenberg.org]. This helps pass the time on my daily one-hour commute.
      • As a Palm replacement. My excellent Palm died 5 months ago.
      • Occasional web surfing. I used it only Sunday night to decide the winner of a bet I had in a pub. (I lost).
      • Practising my French. I have about 20 mins of French audio on it that I listen to while reading the transcript (amazing how good for the soul that one hour com

    • Re:doomed strategy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tim C (15259) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @10:05AM (#10710175)
      aside from better looks and lighter weight the customer doesn't seem to benefit and will eventually realise that.

      No; the ones that these phones aren't targetted at will realise that they're not the intended market and will stop buying them. The people who actually want/need the additional features will continue to buy the phones and be happy with them.

      Seriously, and not to flame you, but I'm always amazed by the number of highly-moderated posts here everytime smart phones are mentioned, decrying them and yearning for a "normal" phone that just does one thing and one thing well. And yet the phones clearly still sell, as they're still being made and new models are still being designed and produced...

      It all reminds me of the reaction to the iPod, and the iPod mini, and more recently the photo iPod. Despite all the expectations here, the neither the iPod nor the mini iPod flopped; quite the contrary in fact.

      I think a lot of posters here need to stop before ripping in to a given piece of tech, and think about the market it's actually targetted at. If you are part of that market, and still think it's not a goer, then fine, rip away. If not, then perhaps it would be best to wait and see how the target market reacts before making such self-assured predictions of failure...

  • the phone is not that new (Score:5, Informative)

    by geighaus (670864) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:09AM (#10709408)
    It was supposed to come out last summer, but since the phone was so ugly, they decided to postpone it. Now they changed the form factor a bit and from the picture they have in the article, it looks better. I wonder if they've got rid of side-talking. Nice features though: big screen with VGA resolution, Opera browser, video and audio playback, text processing and spreadsheets (not sure about the latter though), touch screen etc etc Cannot say that hand writing is any better than just "pressing" the buttons on the screen, as you have to write only a single letter at one time and pattern recoginition is far from perfect. But it is a nice feature nonetheless.

    • Re:the phone is not that new (Score:5, Informative)

      by tao (10867) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @09:26AM (#10709913) Homepage

      Actually, this is not really a postponed version of the same phone; the phone (the 7700 if I remember correctly) you're refering was indeed cancelled (and for good reasons too...), but this model (7710) was initially developed as a follow-up. In fact, the 7700 was until very recently available in the list of phones on Nokias website as "Technology preview. Not for sale" or similar.

  • ...including the usual FUD can be found at the Nokia homepage. [nokia.com]

  • Well it's about time (Score:4, Funny)

    by aussie_a (778472) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:24AM (#10709499) Journal
    I've been waiting for someone/something that can recognise my handwriting. I know I gave up years ago.
  • I'm currently after a new mobile. All it needs to be able to do is: take an already-connected SIM card; send and receive SMS messages, allowing me to type one letter at a time without an annoying predictive dictionary; answer and make voice calls; and connect to a USB port on a laptop running Linux, in order to go on the internet. I specifically do not need, and would be prepared to forego for the sake of cutting costs: polyphonic ring tones, a camera, a high-res colour display, downloadable Java games, m
  • An amazing 30 minutes of battery life.

  • "Recognizes Handwriting"? (Score:4, Funny)

    by 10Ghz (453478) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:30AM (#10709535)
    "Yep, that's handwriting. I have no idea what it says, though."

  • It Does Not However... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RenegadeTK (88556) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:33AM (#10709552)
    ...make phone calls. Nokia has commented that due to the current feature set, the telephony features have been removed. This feature will be implemented in their newly announced line of Laptops.

  • Future of Series 60 smartphones (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Late (8213) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:33AM (#10709554) Homepage

    Nokia has a way of hiding interesting future information in press releases under phone releases. Check out this press release [series60.com] from series60.com which is also available directly from Nokia and in some of the press coverage. It basically says that, Series 60 will have higher resolutions, pen and keyboard input and a lot more in the near future.

    Also in the press coverage is a neat little snipped about testing the new 3220 Near Field Communications shells [nokia.com] as contactless public transport tickets in Germany. That would be a great improvement over the current state of the art which is at least here in Finland is text message single trip tickets, which are handy, but hard to check quickly and probably crackable in the long run.

  • My p800 have been doing that for quite a while now :/ ...
  • I saw it comming years ago. Did you?

    A combination of :
    1. the epoc operating system
    2. handwriting recognition style software on the iPaq WinCE or handwriting recognition software for iPaqLinux.com [ipaqlinux.com]
    3. moore's law reducing the size of hardware
  • Can I get a phone that is just a phone please? Or a phone that excels in phone-based things? I've yet to see a cell phone that lets me block numbers at the phone level, rather than PAYING to have a number blocked with the service provider. No I don't want a crappy digital camera on my phone. No I don't want a crappy music player on my phone. No I don't want a crappy web browser on my phone. I WANT A PHONE THAT IS A PHONE. Jesus christ.

    • Re:Uhm, hi. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dnaumov (453672) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:56AM (#10709710)
      Then for the love of god buy a phone that is just a phone and shut up:

      Nokia 3100: http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,32954,00.html
      Nokia 3510i: http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,2187,00.html
      Nokia 1100: http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,42112,00.html

      I'll take my digital camera, music player and web browser containing phone, thank you.

  • Nokia abandon spell checking... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Demerara (256642) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @08:47AM (#10709650) Homepage
    ...in favour of "Handwritting"

    I, for one, cannot wayte.
  • How about a phone that gets better reception? Or one that doesn't make me sound like I'm calling from inside a tin can?

    The feature-creep that our phones are experiencing is a distraction from what we really want... phones that work well.

    • How about a phone that gets better reception?

      Where do you live?

      Sounds like you could do with a better transmitter.

      • I live in western New York... south of Buffalo. My provider is Dobson/Cellular One. Coverage here isn't spectacular, but even if I'm within a couple hundred yards of a tower, my Nokia 3650 is sketchy.Even in NYC, where I'm assuming coverage is good, service was goofy.

        Could it be the slow strangulation of bandwidth available for digital to make more room for GSM?

        Maybe it's the steel plate in my head blocking the signal when I face in a certain direction...

        I don't know a lot about the tech behind cell service

  • Point of Sale machines (Score:3, Insightful)

    by falser (11170) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @09:00AM (#10709743) Homepage
    I can't even recognize my own signiture on visa/atm machines in stores. The digital touchscreens just don't have the texture, resolution, and responsiveness needed to properly write on them. Are the screens like this phone much better?

  • This is the third model that does it. (Score:3, Informative)

    by vjouppi (621333) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @09:14AM (#10709841)
    The asian models 6108 and 3108 also have handwriting recognition, and they have been out for quite some time now.

    It recognises latin alphabet too, but naturally it's primary use is for chinese letters, etc.

    Much slower than tapping the keys, I can tell you.. I tried one back when they were new. :-)

    http://www.nokia-asia.com/nokia/0,,61400,00.html [nokia-asia.com]

  • VERY old news (Score:3)

    by Captain_Chaos (103843) on Wednesday November 03 2004, @10:20AM (#10710312)
    I've been using a Sony Ericsson P800 [sonyericsson.com] for almost two years now. It has handwriting recognition and can do pretty much everything else the submitter raves about. It's been succeeded by the P900 which is a lot better still, although I'm still very pleased with my P800. I would recommend the line to anyone.
  • I just hope the handwriting recognition is as good as the Newtons.

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