Subject: Re: Hand-writing Chinese input

From: "(Guo Jin)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1992 13:05:31 SST

>
>  2 year(s) ago(not very sure), I noticed some news regarding hand-writing
>  input method while I was in taipei. Several days ago, I got the
>  news from China Daily News, Oversears Ed., saying that, this
>  product is started marketing to local market and overseas market
>  like Singapore and Hongkong, and has a hot sale. I don't have the news
>  in detai ls, hopefully somebody who knows this tech can add more to this.
>  Here I roughly discribe the so called "hand-writing" input method in
>  the following (please send corrections, if something wrong, should be
>  a lot).
>
>      The user use a pen-like stuff, write characters down on a
>  pad-like stuff. This is exactly the way Chinese's writing behavior.
>    The software will recognize what is writing
>  down. According to the report, the corrent precise recognization
>  rate is 98(?). The software has the ability of "self-learning"
>  which means, it will get more familiar with user's "hand-writing
>  style" while it is kept using.

To my knowledge, at least half a dozen such "on-line handwritten Chinese cha
character recognition systems" have been marketed in mainland China,
especially in the famous "electronic street" of the "silicon valley"
(Haidian Zhongguancun) in Beijing, for about 5 years.
The prices are about RMB 1,000 - 2,000 (US$ 150 - 300, at current official
'tiaoji' exchange rate).

To my knowledge, the 'hot sale' never goes beyond the order of 1000 sets,
and almost no buyer keeps in using it to 'write essay'.  In my opinion,
the main obstacles are:

(1) Too slow.  Not the computer to recognize your writing, but your writing!
Just imagine copying an article through writing palm-sized Chinese character
on a palm-sized plate one at a time.  Moreover, to ensure a 'good' recognition
rate, you have to write 'regularly, neatly, clearly, stroke-by-stroke, ...'

(2) Not so accurate.  98% ?  It can achieve 99.9% or more, but by the
developer in the lab!  For 'unfamiliar' end user, less than 80%.  Ok, you also
can get a 'very high' recognition rate through careful practice to fit the
machine.  Hint: don't write 'too fast'.

(3) Hard to use.  This is in the same spirit as I triggered yestoday on the
'continuous pinyin input'.  Yes, no 100% accuracy.  Thus, when you write down
a palm-sized character on the palm-sized plate, you are always anxious to
look at your CRT to check the correctness.  If it is wrong, you are willing to
correct it imidiately.  Atter two or three times repeatition, you may
congratulate yourself of writing down a 'correct' Chinese character.  At the
same time, however, you have forgotten what to write next!

Anyway, on-line hand-writing is a new thing to both the developers and our
end user.  The developers may do more R&D to let their systems more
 'intelligent't
In my opinion, however, the strong feedback of our end users on how to use
such a new 'high tech' might be much more important than the R&D effort to
improve the recognition rate.  The problem is not the recognition approach
itself but HOW TO USE IT!!!

Based on the above BIASED comments, if you still want to buy one, I will
provide a little more COMMERCIAL info.

Discussions are extremely welcomed.
GUO Jin, ISS, NUS, Singapore