Re: Pen-gesture keyboard for Hindi

Not if you consider that, according to the articles, it is meant to be 
used by people who have never used a traditional western keyboard and 
have probably spent all their lives thinking in grapheme clusters rather 
than individual letters, when they write. I don't know anything about 
Hindi but I assume that if the language's written form is based on 
syllables, having to learn what combination of keys on a keyboard 
produce each syllable can be a hurdle in educating people about 
computers because they have to first learn a brand new way to write 
their own language.

What I find interesting about this, if I follow the article correctly, 
is that it provides a fresh look at data input for languages that are 
not alphabet-based and are typically difficult to input using a keyboard.

Maybe it will never prove to be a viable alternative but having someone 
consider any alternative is good IMHO.

Mark Davis wrote:
>
> Right, but nobody ever used a 1000 key keyboard for Hindi, so the 
> "news" about it replacing the need for it is a red herring.
>
> Mark
>
> Martin Duerst wrote:
>>
>> At 02:17 06/04/12, Mark Davis wrote:
>> >
>> >It looks very overblown to me; saw a news report about "a process 
>> that would require up to 1,000 keys using a traditional keyboard" 
>> which is bizarre for Indic.
>>
>> That range of number suggests that they are thinking about Hindi
>> in terms of syllables, treating each grapheme cluster as a unit.
>> In practice, there are about 1000-3000 such clusters in practical use.
>>
>> But this is just a guess.
>>
>> Regards,   Martin.
>>
>>
>> >Mark
>> >
>> >Chris Lilley wrote:
>> >> Hello ,
>> >>
>> >> I thought this might be interesting, partly for the I18n aspect 
>> and partly for the pen-based, gesture modality of text entry.
>> >>
>> >>  
>> http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/07/hp-provides-deets-on-gesture-keyboard/ 
>>
>> >> 
>> http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/17/hp-indias-gesture-keyboard-for-pen-entry/ 
>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Thursday, 13 April 2006 02:46:25 UTC