Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Brown University, Microsoft Research Open Research Center on Pen-Centric Computing (20 Mar 2006) With the goal of driving innovations that will serve the academic community as a whole, researchers at Brown will investigate new ways for computers to recognize and interpret handwritten input. Faculty, students and research staff will also create and test new software that recognizes notations in mathematics, chemistry, art and design, and other fields that have well-developed notational styles. The software would allow the data to be stored as digital ink and shared as handwriting, sketches or text. Programs will also allow for exciting, instantaneous data transformations — for example, turning the symbolic notation of a sketched molecule into a 3-D model of that molecule that the user can view from any vantage point. Andries van Dam, Brown’s vice president for research and a founding member and first chair of the department of computer science, will serve as director of the new center. “In some cases, the pen is mightier than the keyboard,” van Dam said. “Chemists and composers, archeologists and artists all need pen and paper to create and communicate. We want to help them do their work digitally — in a way that is as easy and natural as drawing on paper.” Add this article to Del.icio.us Article URL: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/mar06/03-20MSBrownPenCentricPR.mspx Read 148 more articles from Microsoft sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: CSS Mastery          Books about Usability | Information Architecture | Information Visualisation | Technology History This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy

Popular Items > Top Knitting Sites > Ajax Sucks > What if Jakob Nielsen had a blog? > Kate Bush and Pi > Simply Google