Palm Kills Off Graffiti 440
Ed writes "PalmSource, the company that makes the Palm OS, has decided to stop using Graffiti for text input in all future versions of its operating system. Instead, it will switch to using a version of CIC's Jot recognition system, which will be called Graffiti 2. PalmSource was forced to make this move after losing a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Xerox. Jot is already used by the Pocket PC operating system.
You can read more about it on Brighthand."
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
Dvorak? Qwerty? Standard? Split? V? Light sensor?
And WHERE IS THE CONTROL KEY?
We're all screwwed!!!
Re:Great...[OT] (Score:3, Funny)
Forget the control key. Where's the any key?!? I can't continue like this!
slashdotted server already (Score:5, Informative)
January 13th, 2003
When you think Palm, you think Graffiti. But Palm's long-standing association with its home-grown character recognition software is about to take a dramatic turn. PalmSource, the operating system subsidiary of Palm, Inc., announced today that future versions of Palm OS will not contain Graffiti. Rather, they will incorporate a modified version of Communication Intelligence Corporation's Jot handwriting recognition software, something it's calling Graffiti 2 powered by Jot.
The impetus for the switch appears to be legal rather than technical. In April 1997, Xerox sued Palm, claiming that Graffiti was essentially derived from its patented Unistrokes technology. Unistrokes, or "Unistrokes for Computerized Interpretation of Handwriting", as it is referred to in Xerox's 1997 patent, is a system of text-entry using single-stroke symbols for computerized recognition of handwritten text. However, it appeared Palm dodged a legal bullet when, in June 2000, a federal judge dismissed the case. But in late 2001, Xerox won a reversal in the U.S. Court of Appeals and the lawsuit was back on, and it's been hanging over Palm's head ever since.
CIC's Jot recognition software has long been found on competing handhelds running on the Pocket PC platform. As with Graffiti, its alphabet is based on block characters. However, unlike Graffiti, some characters require two rather than one stroke. Therefore, Jot characters more closely resemble common block letters than Graffiti characters. According to Marlene Somsak, Palm's VP of Communications, this will reduce the learning curve. "For new Palm users, Graffiti 2 powered by Jot is more intuitive and natural than Graffiti," Ms. Somsak told Brighthand.
Hints to Graffiti's demise began to surface last year, when Palm OS licensee Handspring said it was dropping Graffiti in favor of integrated thumb-type keyboards for its Treo organizers. And Palm itself announced in November that, for the first time, it was bundling Communication Intelligence Corporation's Jot handwriting recognition software with its upcoming Tungsten W handheld.
According to Lee Williams, VP of Engineering for PalmSource, the move to Graffiti 2 will allow Palm Platform licensees the choice of foregoing the silk-screened "hard" Graffiti area, since Jot can accept input from anywhere on a device's touchscreen.
According to Mr. Williams, Graffiti 2 powered by Jot will be a modified version of the current version of Jot found on CIC's website. It will be included in future releases of the Palm operating system, including the upcoming Palm OS 4.1.2 and Palm OS 5.2, and will be included in the Palm Developer's Kit (PDK) as part of a unified API.
Wouldn't this be patenting the alphabet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't this be patenting the alphabet? (Score:5, Informative)
RTFPA (patent application). The patent is for "A machine implemented method for interpreting handwritten text..." in other words it is the method for reading uni-strokes that is patented, not the Unistrokes themselves:
The patent [delphion.com]
Re:Wouldn't this be patenting the alphabet? (Score:3, Insightful)
--jeff++
thanks for the link. (Score:5, Interesting)
The patent you point to does not look like something that graphiti would infringe on because graphiti is not rotationaly independent and graphiti uses a seperate area for numerals. Suppose this and other reasons are why the case was tossed out?
In any case, the patent itself is broad and very late. The referenced material dates back to 1982 and we can be sure that there was plenty of prior art. Yes, this is essentially patenting all styles of handwriting that might be easy for a computer to read. The same things make hadwriting easy for people to read as well. The is why most alphabets are mostly rotationally independent and involve as few strokes as possible. If Palm was ugly enough to keep others from using graphiti type systems, they deserve the same treatment, but it all goes to show how silly patents have become.
I'm going to miss graphiti as the replacements, short of a keyboard, just don't work. As Xerox managed to NOT file until 1997, it will be a decade before others may use this without paying Xerox a fee. I hope Xerox will be reasonable, ten years from now voice recognition will be good enough on portable devices and graphiti will be worthless.
Re:Wouldn't this be patenting the alphabet? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they don't. Quite a few printed letters we write every day require multiple strokes to write them cleanly and properly.
But it's not just a matter of correctness; it's also a matter of efficiency: it takes far more movement of your pen/stylus to write standard letters. So even if you expended the effort to keep your pen on the paper to draw the entire letter, it would take you a lot longer to do that than to write the Graffiti equivalent.
That's why the Graffiti system was considered innovative: it provided simple characters that were quicker to write, and easier to write consistently---but which still resembled the original letters enough to be somewhat easy to learn.
Look, people thought that the Graffiti system was inventive at the time it was introduced. Nobody back then said "oh, some people just write like this anyway, what's so cool about that?" Now that this patent dispute has come about, we can't just go back and decide otherwise.
strokes for cursive (Score:4, Informative)
Quite a few printed letters we write every day require multiple strokes to write them cleanly and properly.
That may be true for printed letters, but among Latin lowercase cursive letters, the only ones that need more than one stroke are i (need the dot to distinguish ii from u) and t (crossed).
Why don't they fight it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Palm using Graffiti goes way back to the early nineties. One would think that they would have no problem proving prior art.
-- Len
Re:Why don't they fight it? (Score:4, Informative)
Palm and Graffiti older than Pilots (Score:3, Informative)
Re:slashdotted server already (Score:5, Informative)
I think there was some hackery around the X character in Graffiti. If you invoke Graffiti Help, you'll see that the official way of drawing it is as you described. Two strokes, top-left to bottom-right, top-right to bottom-left. But scroll down in the help to the extended shift page. Look at the multiplication character's stroke. Top-right to bottom-left. But the preceding extended shift stroke is top-left to bottom-right. And the resulting character isn't a distinct multiplication symbol; it's a lower-case X! Sneaky, eh?
For the record, there is a single-stroke X gesture. Just keep the stylus down between the two strokes of the "official" X gesture. Think of it as a lower-case alpha, or a sideways shortcut gesture. Either way, I found it easier than the two-stroke X, which I always slopped into "lower-case I, [CR-LF]"
Re:slashdotted server already (Score:3, Interesting)
I also remember something from my old Palm V manual about "if you have trouble making certain characters, try writing them backwards (mirror image)" or words to that effect. Sure 'nuff, most characters and numbers can be written that way as well.
My big gripe with Graffiti was that the cut-and-paste commands were easy to botch. I lost data several times because I overwrote the stuff I was trying to copy with a capital 'C'. If you didn't realize right away or the data was too big to undo -- oops! And with PalmOS, it's not like you can quit without saving.
Don't toss out those spray paint cans yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
But why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Point being, hacking up Jot to do Graffiti would be a step backwards in my opinion.
Graffiti was too slow anyway... (Score:2)
Not only was (and still is) text recognition HORRIBLE, especially for people that have "unique" handwriting, like myself, but it's just so slooooow.
Re:Graffiti was too slow anyway... (Score:2)
so long, farewell (Score:5, Interesting)
I finally learned, and got rather proficient at it. The breaking point was when I started to write on paper using graffiti. It was then I realized how dependant I was on it.
Re:so long, farewell (Score:5, Funny)
If you were trying to type your graffiti instead of writing it... that miiiiight just have been part of the problem....
Actually, you could create a "graffiti" keyboard, with the graffiti symbols instead of letters. That could sorta be cool. ThinkGeek anyone? Nah, probably an infringement.
Hopefully it will be easier for non-geeks... (Score:5, Insightful)
I just hope that the "new" graffiti is easier on non-geeks...
RickTheWizKid
Stupid Muggle technology...
Re:Hopefully it will be easier for non-geeks... (Score:3, Insightful)
Consistency (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Consistency (Score:3, Insightful)
maybe people have different opinions. Slashdot isn't made out of people who think the same way everyone else does, or else that'd be boring. With the exception of liking technology, the slashdot community is diverse and sometimes friendly.
PS If you're remotley sly, see what else i wrote.
Re:Consistency (Score:4, Funny)
You're new here, right?
or else that'd be boring
It certainly is.
I LOVED Graffiti! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple thought it was so important to have real handwrighting recognition in the Newton, for example, that it was willing to adopt the technology before it was ready. Conventional wisdom said that ordinary users wouldn't want to learn a funny way of writing.
Boy was Conventional Wisdom wrong! It was FUN to learn grafitti. When I first got my Palm, I couldn't wait to learn it, so I can be "in the club" like everyone else. I ran their practice app, and got good at it within an hour.
Jot's probably not too different; maybe they can put in a "Graffity Compatibility mode" now that Palm's paying the royalties.
Obligatory Newton joke... (Score:5, Funny)
A: Faux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup!
Newton+Simpsons (Score:3, Funny)
Jimbo writes the note, then reads it back.
Jimbo: "Eat up Martha? Bah!"
Jimbo throws the Newton, hitting Martin in the head.
Re:Obligatory Newton joke... (Score:3, Funny)
Scott Adams did a take on this:
Ratbert: "You can write on my belly with this stylus, and using state-of-the-rat technology, I'll convert your scribblings to English!"
Ratbert, eyes closed, lying on back, with Dilbert writing on his belly: "Weave me a cone, you cupid bat!"
slow and non-standard (Score:5, Informative)
Palm should have used something like Jot from the start, or they should have copied Xerox's Unistrokes better.
Here [yorku.ca] is some Unistrokes performance data showing it to be the fastest of the bunch. There are papers comparing Graffiti and Unistrokes directly, and, again, Unistrokes comes out way ahead.
Re:I LOVED Graffiti! (Score:3, Insightful)
If you aren't kidding, sure, maybe you wanted to learn it for "fun," but you are a big geek (not an insult, just a fact). Most people do not want to have to (weeeeeeeee) fiddle around for ages to figure out how to use their new organizer.
The Palm didn't succeed because of Grafitti, it succeeded in spite of it. It was cheap, small, with a simple interface (Grafitti notwithstanding). The Newton is still far superior in just about every way, it just wasn't as marketable at the time.
- j
Re:I LOVED Graffiti! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, he is not kidding. What Palm did, and Apple didn't do, is find out what people actually wanted, rather than what people thought they wanted.
Apple listened to what people said they wanted, and went for zero training over accuracy. Palm figured out that accuracy was way more important to people, even though people said otherwise.
Palm was and is far superior to Newton and PocketPC in almost every way that is actually important to people. PocketPC has been able to somewhat overcome that by massive marketing. Apple didn't have to resources that Microsoft has to market past the fundamental flaw of not really understanding the customer, so Newton never took off.
Well, that's it for Palm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, that's it for Palm. (Score:3, Informative)
People don't want Graffiti, Jot and so on (Score:4, Interesting)
Now hold on a sec - those of us SlashDot faithful are not representative of the average Palm user. But if you look at your sister or boss or the guy on the train, very few of them like or bothered to learn Graffiti.
Oh well.
Re:People don't want Graffiti, Jot and so on (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People don't want Graffiti, Jot and so on (Score:3, Insightful)
Competing PDAs (usually running Windows CE) have offered handwriting recognition and keyboards for a long time. Dispite this, Palm's with Graffiti dominated the PDA market for a long time. Those people who were willing to pay for PDA chose the optino that provided a smaller form facter, longer battery life, and in many cases a lower price. While they may not want Graffiti, they're clearly willing to live with it.
Of course, as technology advances, handwriting recognition or usable keyboards may become an option. But such devices are still larger and have a shorted battery life at the moment. Palm's market share has certainly started to slide, but it's not a dead yet.
Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
goddanm iit! (Score:5, Funny)
whot th3 fsck am i goin;;;;: to do nuw?
Darn. (Score:2, Insightful)
Any chance anyone will ever resurrect the Newton's handwriting recognition engine? It was actually starting to get good near the end, before Jobs killed it.
Well, hey, if I got used to the Newton and Graffiti, I should be able to get used to something else...
I suspect that a public outcry is in the works... (Score:5, Interesting)
I realize this is different because it is a legal switch rather than a "taste" switch. But that may give the public all the more reason to protest the change. Will people really give a darn? I wonder.
--naked [slashdot.org]
Re:I suspect that a public outcry is in the works. (Score:4, Funny)
"Coca Cola Oldschool"
i will miss graffiti (Score:2)
Mandatory Reference (Score:5, Interesting)
Graffiti never held a candle to the Newton's handwriting recognition. I know; I used both.
The Newton recognized my handwriting, something that my wife rarely does. I use Graffiti on my Handspring Visor now, but I really miss my Newton. Well, actually, it was the taxpayers' Newton, since testing it was part of my campus job.
Just the same, I have to wonder if the legal eagles haven't killed another good product with their new emphasis on IP issues. Graffiti wasn't the best, but it was good enough for what I have to do.
Re:Mandatory Reference (Score:4, Interesting)
To be completely honest, I prefer Grafitti. I'd prefer it even more if
I could write anywhere on the screen (as Jot allows), but then again
I think the Grafitti pad is nice in that it cuts down the wear on the
screen.
The problem with the Newton engine is that it took ages to tune
it so that it was comfortable. Even then, I found I had to adjust my
own writing... bigger, more deliberate scribbles, for example. And
trying to actually take notes when it mattered or convert them later
was just too much twiddling around. The handwriting recognition worked
well when it worked, but it was just an incredible bother to get it
that far.
The Palm concept is simple, cheap, functional and (in my opinion)
disposable. Grafitti fits well with that model. I imagine that Jot
fits even better.
c.
I do believe this is a good thing... (Score:2)
Graffiti is definitely not all it's cracked up to be (at least for me) while I can write the graffitis fast enough, I find it extremely disconcerting to write characters on top of each other: it goes against many years of learned behaviour (handwriting) and for this reason I don't think it'll ever feel natural. I also read somewhere an article that was talking about exactly this phenomenon.
IMHO there is no reason for graffiti/graffiti-like stuff to exist: for pdas use a Qwertyish keyboard (on screen or hardware) for tablet PCs just use standard handwriting recognition software.
What is Xerox going to do with it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Pentagon Seeks Robots-Prize is $1 Million [xnewswire.com]
Excellent Slashdot timing (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you Xerox, from the depths of my bank account.
How do I "Jot"? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How do I "Jot"? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you look at the character chart [cic.com], every Jot character except "X" has a one-stroke equivalent (in fact, only "I", "J", and "T" have a two-stroke varient).
Certainly modifying grafitti so that "X" is two strokes would not have been sufficient to fend off the lawsuit, right? So what gives?
ga! grafiti is so so so much better (Score:4, Interesting)
That, and all my profs have learned to read grafiti, er, my handwriting.
It's a good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
The only difficulty I've had with Jot is getting it to do the underscore properly. But othe
Re:It's a good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Many say that JOT is slower than Grafiti and they have a point. A well-practiced Grafiti user will outpace a well-practiced JOT user every time... but the number of well-practiced Grafiti users I know can be counted on one finger. All the rest use the on-screen keyboard instead. But every person I know who installed JOT uses it daily.
Major trouble for Palm (Score:2)
What about PocketPC's? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What about PocketPC's? (Score:5, Insightful)
By reading the Federal Circuit opinion [ipo.org] that reversed the district court's summary judgment, it seems that the key issue that prevents Jot from infringing is that it "does not allow for 'definitive recognition' of symbols immediately upon pen lift by the user." Certain letters and symbols in Jot [cic.com] -- 'T,' 'X,' the question mark, and so on -- require multiple strokes to create the character. The actual shapes of the characters are not part of the patent, so there's no problem with Jot and Xerox's Unistroke sharing swooshes.
This leads one to wonder why the Graffiti 'X' doesn't allow Graffiti to escape infringement -- the appellate court opinion quotes the district court as citing accented characters in this sense, but not Graffiti's two-stroke 'X.' If I had to make a wild guess, I'd assume this was proffered by Palm in district court and refuted by Xerox on the grounds that the first slash in the 'X' is actually the stroke to enter extended mode, and thus the 'X' is still technically a unistroke character. If Palm had simply reversed the direction of the strokes so that the first stroke wasn't extended mode, then they might have been immunized. Of such tiny errors are great patent cases decided.
Jot isnt so great (Score:2)
Not that bad for Palm (Score:2)
LOTR based Graffiti (Score:5, Funny)
Xerox patent on UNISTROKES? (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds to me like another bogus patent. If something is very easy to re-invent independently, it shouldn't be patentable. I thought patents were supposed to be non-obvious.
Hmmm. We want to recognize letters. Our big problem is that it's hard to tell which stroke belongs to which character. Hey... many characters are only one stroke; why not make a simplified alphabet so they ALL are only one stroke?
I mean, it's a little bit more complicated than using XOR to draw a cursor, but not that much.
P.S. Xerox may score a few bucks from this, but that is all they can manage. Palm doesn't really need Graffiti anymore.
When the PalmPilot first came out, it really did need Graffiti; handwriting recognition on an 8 MHz CPU with a tiny amount of RAM needs all the help it can get. Now, with much more computing power in the latest Palm devices, a trainable system that adapts to the user's writing is probably the right thing.
Re:Xerox patent on UNISTROKES? (Score:3, Informative)
Ob. Disclaimer: I am quite opposed to current patent law and its application in practice. That said, I feel the need to provide an alternative view to your knee-jerk rewriting of recent technological history.
Unistrokes was quite non-obvious when no one had actually done it yet. The entire field of handwriting recognition was relatively new. While many so-called "innovations" really do fail the non-obviousness test, this simply wasn't one of them. In this case, 20-20 hindsight blinds you to the novelty of the idea *before anyone had thought of it*. (Think about the design of the paperclip for a moment, if you don't get this.) Moreover, Xerox didn't just think of it, they researched the idea to show that their design actually made sense from an CHI perspective. Their work was quite innovative in that era's handwriting recognition research.
I have a hard time believing that the Graffiti devleopers didn't know about Unistrokes.
Published work on Unistrokes was readily available in conferences, journals, and online. Anyone doing even a minimal literature dive for handwriting recognition technology would have found the papers. Even if the work was independent and/or prior, there's at least some technical guilt for re-inventing a well-known solution. MS gets bashed for not-invented-here syndrome all the time -- why not Palm?
And remember -- half or more of the battle is in seeing past the now and into that first great idea. That this idea is amenable to a straightforward implementation is a *feature*, since it was aimed at low-power embedded devices.
You stipulate that Graffiti was "re-invent[ed] independently". Do you have any basis in fact for this statement, or are you just defending your vision of Palm as The Innocent Victim?
I mean, it's a little bit more complicated than using XOR to draw a cursor, but not that much.
You are clearly ready for the marketing department. "Oh, that's trivial! The engineering teams can do it in an hour or two, I'm sure!" The innovation here is NOT algorithmic, but rather in the design concept and how it dovetails with a user-interaction model and an efficient implementation.
Re:Xerox patent on UNISTROKES? (Score:4, Insightful)
The two problems are:
1) How do you recognize the end of a character?
2) How do you maximize the SNR given sloppy human input?
The soution to the first problem is fully obvious -- use a single stroke to indicate a character. That is, implement the characters as a set of "gestures", where a gesture is a single engage, draw, disengage sequence. I believe people have been using gestures since the early sixties, for instance in "Sketchpad", an ealy mouse based graphics program. On a film I saw of Sketchpad in action, the operator would draw something like a circle, and the program would replace it with a perfect circle. There were gestures for circles, rectangles, and lines. The obvious and standard way to solve the problem of character distinction is to treat the charactes as gestures, i.e. single or "uni" strokes. I do not see how this can be fairly patented.
To maximize the SNR the standard pattern recognition trick, one I learned in a pattern recognition class in 1984, is to try to arrange your feature space so that the classes (letters in this case) are as well separated as possible. Any gesture based system will be concerned with the class separation of the gestures in feature space -- this is standard practice in the art of pattern recognition. My reading of the patent is that Xerox was trying to patent the set of getures that best separate in their specific feature space. This seems as valid as any other software patent to me: the calculation and selection of features can be subtle.
But what actually happened is that Xerox obtained, apparently, a patent on the use of any set of gestures used as an alphabet in the context of an electronic device. What this means practically is that Xerox somehow now owns the lower case alphabet, except for f, k, t, and x. Palm did not at all follow Xeorx -- they chose the gestures first for similarity to natural characters, then for separation in whatever feature space they are using. It is probably not the same feature space that Xerox was using since the approach is so different.
Note that Xerox owns these characters only in the context of some electronic or computer based input device, so it is still ok to use the alphabet to write on paper. Also it is ok to use these characters to write full words, i.e. where letter placement matters. You just cannot use these characters in some sort of input box, in a sequential fashion.
I think the patent as written is not so bad for a software patent, but I think the use of it against Palm is a disaster. It really does make it seem like there is no point in trying to do anything if they will allow patents to be applied so generally.
Well this sucks. (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly, If Graffiti can be sued, what stops xerox from suing CIC for their Jot character recgonition? especially when unistrokes looked nothing like graffiti and still won.
with the exception of (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got an even better idea (Score:4, Insightful)
contrary to some people's belief, knowing graffiti doesn't elevate you into an exclusive club. it simply means that you're willing to put up with corporate work-around solutions instead of demanding something that actually fits your needs.
Re:I've got an even better idea (Score:3, Insightful)
roll-up keyboard for when you've got a little extra time.
see? that wasn't that hard. it took two of us a grand total of 3 thought processes in the course of about an hour and we already came up with a system that's better than graffiti. someone ought to give us absurdly huge grants or corporate hush-money for this.
Jot Usability? (Score:5, Informative)
How does the usability of Jot compare? Any ideas? Personally, if I am entering text, I like to use a thumb keyboard (e.g., Blackberry). One more thing, I guess that Jot 2.0 is available as shareware [palmflying.com]. It gets good ratings, but I haven't seen any "real" usability research.
Graffiti was Inexcusable in the First Place (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers and PDAs are made for humans, not humans for PDAs. I know Newton was not perfect, and I've only tried a Newton once, but I see no excuse why the leader in the market can continue to sell a product that requires people to change habits in something as basic as handwriting when the Newton, a product that was discontinued, was able to do so much better. The only reason I can see for Palm's continued mediocrity in this field is because, as the leader, they didn't want to fix something they didn't have to.
While Graffiti may work for people that spend a huge amount of their time w/ computers and learning computers, for me, who just wanted to use my Palm V as a tool, it is pathetic.
I think Palm would be MUCH better off (and so would a lot of customers) if they would just go on and develop a "real" handwriting recognition program. If Apple came so close w/ the Newton's handwriting rec., I'm sure an industry leader in the PDA field could.
Just my
Re:Graffiti was Inexcusable in the First Place (Score:4, Insightful)
I love grafitti. Well, I like graffiti, although it would be nice to train it a bit for my own illegible scrawl. Still, it's easy to enter stuff into my palm pilot.
But...for actual writing? No way! A PDA is simply not (yet?) a platform for extensive text creation. Use a computer with a keyboard, or actually write on paper and then scan it into an OCR program. Don't blame the poor PDA too much for being lousy at a job it wasn't designed for.
That said, I can hardly wait until we DO have such beasts working well.
Re:Graffiti was Inexcusable in the First Place (Score:4, Insightful)
Jot is cool. (Score:4, Informative)
I found Jot much easier to use and learn than Graffiti and when people used my Palm they thought it was a lot easier.
Rats.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Great News (as sarcasm oozes out of me) (Score:5, Insightful)
Another wonderful example of our fouled-up intellectual property laws stifling, instead of promoting, the use of technology.
Palm brings a great idea to millions of people, and Xerox can quash it years after the fact because the filed some papers years ago.
It doesn't even make me feel any better that Xerox may be one of the worst run companies of the last decade. It's a negative-sum game. They are still fouled up and now I can't use Grafitti in the future. If it was up to Xerox, their patent would still be collecting dust.
It is clear that too many patents are not truly unique and deserving protection. A "one-stroke writing system"!?! I guess all shorthand dictationists owe their salaries to Xerox. This patent is for shorthand on a computer! Gimme a break.
There really ought to be a "use it or lose it" rule with patents, and the patent office needs to be much more strident in considering prior art.
Inventors are turning into high-priests to give themselves exclusive use of tabooed (patented) ideas.
prepare to be educated... (Score:3, Informative)
What's more, Xerox received their patent in January of 1997 and started the suit against USR (who owned Palm/Graffiti back then) just 3 months later in April of that year (http://news.com.com/2100-1023-279360.html?legacy
So get off your high horse and blame Palm for knowingly using Xerox's work for 8 years (and dragging the suit out for the last 5 years!) instead. Put it in a different perspective -- when Microsoft stole Stacker's work and then delayed Stacker's lawsuit until it no longer mattered what the suit decided, did you blame Stacker for trying to quash MS's self-compressing filesystems long after the fact?
Jot User's Guide (Score:3, Informative)
If there's a space in the URL, that's Slashdot's fault.
Graffiti-1 open-sourced? (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux community would appreciate it as it is a shame that Linux still doesn't have any good freely available well working hand-writing recognition software.
Other alternatives (Score:3, Informative)
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. They blew the case. (Score:5, Interesting)
Eoe couu tris hddbu? (Score:5, Funny)
A brilliant move by Xerox... (Score:3, Insightful)
In trying to prevent another oops-we-lost-the-GUI, Xerox just managed to do just that.
Ironic (Score:3, Insightful)
For Xmas, my bud got me a Dell Axim for a present. One of the first things I figured out, was how to put it in "Block Recognizer" mode, so that it understands Grafitti.
Now Palm's moving away from Grafitti, basically leaving all of their existing customer base wtih their best upgrade option for the future, being to move to the competitions products, since it better suits their ingrained habits.
Seems like a disastrous decision to me.
Who cares? Keyboards are better (Score:3, Insightful)
I recently got a Handspring Treo for christmas, and I'm already used to the controls - I didn't have to waste time teaching myself a new writing system, or trying to teach the thing my handwriting style. When I need to enter 'Q', I just press the button that says 'Q'. How much simpler can you get?
I've noticed that a lot of new handhelds (Treo, Blackberry, Hiptop) have integrated keyboards instead of handwriting-recognition. I think this is because the "gimmick" factor of writing on a computer have faded, and people are more concerned about usability now. It's just too bad Palm decided to go to another flaky "writing system" instead of putting a decent keyboard in.
Fitaly Tap Keyboard Better Anyway (Score:5, Informative)
The advantage is that the keyboard is designed to lessen pen (stylus) movement based on common words. It is highly customizable and supports international characters. shifting, special characters, etc.
I like it and it works for me. I won't miss Graffiti at all. Worth a look if you're interested in alternatives.
Re:Why remove code? (Score:5, Interesting)
they either have to pay lots of money or remove the feature entirely.
This is not by choice, they are being forced to do this.
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like we all learned to type, on a QWERTY keyboard, which was designed to slow typists down so they didn't jam the early mechanical typewriters. Yet another example of designing for the machine and not the human. I'd say you've proven his point quite nicely.
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Is printing superior to scripting? No, scripting is much faster, but you had to learn that too. Typing is much faster than writing by hand. If repetitive-stress disorders are a problem now, think of what they'd be if everyone was trying to write out things on tablets for data entry.
The problem most usability "experts" have is that they think it's never a good idea to learn a new interface. That is not universally true. While it is a bad idea to break interface concepts that are common (like red=stop, green=go), it doesn't mean every new interface is bad. When farm tractors were first introduced, several models had the operator driving the same way they drove a team of horses. The steering mechanism was designed to mimic the old horse-drawn equipment. While this method was familiar, it wasn't superior to the car-style interface that it now used.
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes, the failure of the pen and keyboard. Some of of the silliest inventions.
One would think that by now someone could make a device that read minds--but apparently that is hard.
(And probably not desirable anyway. "Computer: I wanted a spreadsheet not a girl spreading on the sheets. I don't care what I was thinking this is my office! )
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Bad (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, and remember when your teachers MADE you write in a certain way? Bet you hated it then and don't do it now...
Boy do I miss my newton!!!
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Bad (Score:5, Funny)
"The only 'intuitive interface' is the nipple. EVERYTHING else is learned."
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
You're forgetting history. Until recently, computers didn't have the processing power to understand arbitrary input (and a computers attempts to still aren't perfect.) Dispite this, people who wanted the computer now instead of later adapted.
Sure, true handwriting recognition was adequete and available when the Palm first came out. But it was also processor intensive. Certainly more demanding than the puny 16 Mhz processor in the Palm. To support handwriting recognition would have required a faster processor and thus, a shorter battery life. In fact, about the time of my first Palm, Microsoft's PocketPCs had handwriting recognition. Of course, they were surprisingly warm to the touch when running and measured their battery lifespan in hours. The Palms of the era generated no noticable heat and measured their lifespan in weeks! As someone who easily forgets to buy new batteries (or recharge my newer PalmOS device), I appreciate this.
Yes, ideally my computer would perfectly understand my handwriting without any training period. However there will need to be a balance between price, battery life, heat, and ease of input for the forseeable future. For many people (including the millions of Palm users), Palm achieved the best balance available at the time.
Graffiti UI issues (Score:3, Interesting)
In UI design, just as in engineering, we have trade-offs. You let something give in one area to get something in return. Palm's design had to use grafitti because it was the only way to create a device that was capable of fitting easily in your shirt pocket and running on batteries for entire month(s) (a Palm back then with a 200mhz CPU like the one in my zaurus would have been like carrying around a brick). People seem to forget that how people interact with hardware UI is just as much part of the user experience as how they act with the software UI. This is doubly true for a device that is carried around as opposed to one that sits on your desk all day. In fact, the creator of the Palm, Jeff Hawkins, did something that few PDA creators actually do: he shaped a block of wood (i.e. made a prototype) that would easily fit into the pocket and from there built up the model of user interaction with the hardware by carrying the thing around to meetings and writing on it (that's how he came up with grafitti). Any good UI design person will tell you that you should design the interface before you start designing the technical stuff (as opposed to grafting it on last as 'a testament to modularity'). I really wish that designers of mobile devices took half as much care designing their products as Jeff Hawkins did with the original Palm.
While the Newton was a great idea, it was somthing that didn't easily fit into the pocket. I had heard rumors that mac journalist Andy Ihnatko actually created a "holster" so that he was able to carry the Newton around with him whereever he went; if that isn't a great example of a human being forced to adapt to clunky technology, I don't know what is.
But your are completely right to criticize grafitti in this day and age. Palm processors have gotten faster and memory has gotten larger, yet none of these resources have been used to make Palms handwriting recognition any more accurate or Grafitti any more humane. For crying out loud, the next generation of mobile devices will have 400mhz StrongARM processors; before we use this all this power to do multi-media this and wireless connectivity that, we should make sure that people have the ability to easily write stuff into their PDA's.
Keyboards are obvious, Graffiti is not (Score:3, Interesting)
The other is a Graffiti pad and a stylus. They try what seems natural and start writing letters. Oops, some work, some don't. Hmmm, what's going on.
That's why, although people may not know the "proper" way of typing, they can still use a keyboard. You may not be as efficient, but it still works. With a Palm and Graffiti, you must learn to remember the Graffiti keystrokes to even get it to work.
I wouldn't worry too much... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I wouldn't worry too much... (Score:3, Insightful)
It looks like Pocket PC basically copied Grafitti. At least /\ does the expected thing in "block recognition" mode. But now if Palm drops the support, most users will just decide to try a PPC for their next handheld, since they have to learn something new anyway. On the other hand, they will not thing much of paying extra $5 for the Xerox license.
Re:Was Inkwell even considered? (Score:4, Informative)
Strangely, I don't see why Palm doesn't have prior art claims (those apply in patent cases, right?) Graffiti was released as an enhancement to supplement the initially bad HWR on the early Newtons. I think it was available in '93 or '94 (though I don't know for sure.) Strange.
Re:I own an pocket pc... (Score:3, Interesting)
I see your keyboard has recognition problems too :-)
Seriously, though, I use Transcriber all the time and I rarely get a problem with it. It's far quicker than the letter recogniser, and on the odd occasion where it refuses to read the letter that I put in, I tend to use the onscreen keyboard. Have you been through and 'trained' Transcriber (selected the relevant character styles)? That makes a big difference.
My wife is a primary school teacher, so is very precise with her character forming, and has so far got near enough 100% accuracy whenever she's played with mine (ooh err).