updated PalmSource has licensed CIC's Jot character recognition system for its new handwriting system, replacing Graffiti for all devices, and added a unified soft Graffiti area.
In one of the most radical changes in the Palm platform since the spin-off from 3Com, PalmSource has announced that they will be licensing CIC's Jot character recognition software for all future devices. Under the agreement, "Graffiti 2 powered by Jot," will be embedded by PalmSource in the newest updates of their OS available to licensees, Palm OS 4.2 and Palm OS 5.2 for 68k- and ARM-based devices, respectively.
Graffiti 2 includes a new character recognition system based on Jot as well as other long-awaited improvements. PalmSource has made slight modifications to the Jot character set in order to improve its learnability, and PalmSource Director of OS Marketing Michael Higashi told us that in testing they found the Graffiti 2 system had a lower learning curve for new users than "Graffiti 1". More proficient Graffiti users may have a steeper learning curve to adapt, but were also able to transition to the Graffiti 2 character set. Graffiti 2 will not support the Graffiti 1 characters. The Graffiti 2 system will also include support for a new unified "virtual Graffiti" API. That will allow licensees to replace the traditional silk-screened writing area with a software-collapsible one that can be hidden to reveal more of the screen. HandEra was the first Palm OS licensee to support a virtual Graffiti area, and was followed by Sony, Samsung, and now Garmin, all with their own system. Graffiti 2 also includes optional support for full-screen writing, at the licensee's discretion.
The Jot recognition system, long-standard on Pocket PC devices, uses a character set that is closely based on printed block characters. Several characters are multi-stroke, that is, the user must draw the character in two separate strokes rather than as a single stroke. CIC has also offered Jot as an after-market option on Palm OS devices for a number of years, along with other text-assist programs. By contrast, the Graffiti system, developed by Jeff Hawkins at Palm Computing in the early 1990s as an evolution of its "PalmPrint" software, uses all single-stroke characters designed to minimize both the movement of the user's hand and the processing power necessary to analyze and recognize the character. As a result, Graffiti characters also less closely resemble their "standard" English counterparts than Jot characters do.
Graffiti has been present on every Palm OS handheld to date, save the Handspring Treo line and Palm's forthcoming Tungsten W, both of which have thumb boards instead. Although it had a higher initial learning curve than other character recognition systems of its time, Graffiti had a far higher accuracy rate and was in a large part responsible for the Palm's market success.
Over a year ago Palm lost a lawsuit from Xerox which claimed that the Graffiti characters were too similar to Xerox's patent but largely-unused "Unistroke" character set. Palm and PalmSource have always maintained that they were not in violation of Xerox's patent, and are continuing appeals, however, the court case proved an impetus for PalmSource to begin looking at alternative character recognition systems. Regardless of the eventual outcome of the court case, Palm OS is moving away from the classic Graffiti character set. "The technology in Jot was best suited for where we are going," Higashi said.
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