Calculate with handwriting

[Mic]

It is possible with this application on tablet and smartphone : MyScript Calculator.

Do you know it ?

It would be great a such technology on calculator ! no ?

More about :
http://www.calc-bank.com/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1816

[Maximilian Hohmann]

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Do you know it ?

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I've seen it in the iTunes store and tried to install it, but it requires IOS6 which I haven't installed yet.

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It would be great a such technology on calculator ! no ?

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Yes, but it requires the resources and computing power of a tablet PC or high-end smartphone. Any calculator able to run that kind of application will not be much different from those and therefore not cheaper either. But limited to calcualtions, whereas the tablet can be used for a multitude of other tasks.

Regards
max

[Walter B]

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It would be great a such technology on calculator ! no ?

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I beg to disagree. 99.9% of the computing power will go to decode handwriting - a proper keyboard will deliver unambiguous input instead. So a serious calculator will need 0.1% of the power to do its job.

d:-)

[Garth Wilson]

For simple equations, or even for more complex ones you've already formed on paper, it's just as easy to type them in. For complex ones, I find my self having to form them from the inside out and having to erase portions and re-write them a little higher or more to the left or whatever to get the remaining part to fit between them and an earlier part written.

As I've said before, the majority of calculations I need to do come up without warning, and there is no equation in front of me. This is real life. Thinking about the problem, I figure out the steps as I go, whether it's to take A, raise it to the power of B, subtract C, divide the whole thing by D, add E... whatever-- you get the idea. And when I start, I don't really know or particularly care what the final resulting equation is going to look like.

[Eric Smith]

It's "just as easy to type [simple equations] in" when you have a physical keyboard, but not so easy when you have to deal with an on-screen virtual keyboard.

I'm not sure whether I'd find this app useful or not, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand until I'd spent some time with it.

I've got a Casio AT-550G calculator watch (analog/digital watch) from around 1983. It has no conventional tiny mechanical calculator buttons. It uses a touchscreen, but unlike all of the later Casio touchscreen watches, it doesn't have dedicated button areas indicated by the LCD either. Instead, it actually uses glyph recognition. You trace the digits, decimal point, operators, and equal sign on the face, similar to Graffiti on the Palm PDAs many years later.

Like a bear riding a bicycle, the impressive part isn't how well the glyph recognition on the watch worked, but that they were able to do it at all.

I bought the watch partially in response to an employer telling me that I couldn't wear a calculator watch to work as it looked "unprofessional". But I probably would have bought it even without that incentive.

Unfortunately the stem used to adjust the analog clock has broken.

[Reth]

Just another useless app

[kc]

The problem is that you can never assure if the App would decode correctly. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if log 5 is interpreted as 1095.

kc

[C.Ret]

There no risk of miss interpretation, the log function is missing.

A full bunch of scientific or business functions are missing; log, ln, sin, cos, tan, sin^-1, cos^-1, tan^-1.

Also is missing any statistic basic functions, unit conversion, any form of solver, register or variable. This last fact may be of great use for solving complex problem, especially because number of character recognize by the application is limited. Having variable name and register may be of use to simplify expression.

That makes a lot of cons. One pro point is a nice video tutorial:

MyScript Calculator Tutorial Video

Another good point is that the fractions are compute without round-off errors:




But I agree with some of you, stylet handwriting on touch screen is a much better interaction than simulating key pressing. I sure this will be the style of interaction with handled numeric devices. Of course, specific functionalities (such as scientific, statistic or other treatments…) have still to be developed.

Up to now, real handle calculators are greatly superior; full set of function, typing calculation with one hand when the other reports results and manipulate equation on paper with pencil.

[Michael Kussmaul]

I tried the said app some time ago (if you have an iPhone please try it, before making assumptions :o) - and some of the comments are just wrong:

- It has basic trig/log functionality (despite the FAQ on their site states otherwise ;-), so "log 5" gives a result, as well as sin, cos (also inverse) etc. you even can switch between RAD/DEG mode

- Not sure which version the screenshot above was taken, but on mine, the drawn input is reformatted. So if the app misinterpreted an input, it will show you and you can correct. To be honest the accuracy is quite impressive!

I agree, it's not something I would use on a daily basis, I still prefer keys - but it's still impressive. On my iPad it is even better, because you have quite some real-estate to draw the equations.

I think this app is more a tech-demo/ad - because the company behind it sell handwriting-recognition software for companies. With this app they get some fame and probably one or more clients :-) (I'm not affiliated with said company)

[C.Ret]

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- It has basic trig/log functionality (despite the FAQ on their site states otherwise ;-), so "log 5" gives a result, as well as sin, cos (also inverse) etc. you even can switch between RAD/DEG mode

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I am sorry, but the version I download, install and test don't have any 'function' capacities.

It looks as if iPhone and Androïde version are really two different applications.

The application I have is MyScript Calculator Version 1.0.2 Powered by MyScript(R) Copyright (c) Vision Objets for Androïd (ver. 4.0.4 ) on tablet GoNomad (r) model WPS700YA.

Is it possible that the iPhone version implement alphabetic character recognization and functional computations?

[Eddie W. Shore]

I just downloaded myScript for my phone and iPad. I can confirm the Andriod is pretty limited (for now).

I can envision this type of software being around.

[Pavel Nemec (CZ)]

Here is the Calc Forensics result from iPad app. Compare here other results

asin(acos(atan(tan(cos(sin(9))))))-8.999999999832569=0

It takes some practice for correct inputs.

Pavel

[Walter B]

Just for the record:

The WP 34S (v3.2 build 3358) returns 9.000 000 000 029 361 in default single precision

and 8.999 999 999 999 999 999 999 999 999 937 535 in double precision.

d:-)

[Thomas Klemm]

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That's not what I get. With neither of my calculators nor with this app.

Cheers

Thomas

[C.Ret]

Sorry for that.

It's typical fingers typing on the keyboard too fast without any brain watching at neither reading what posted !

I correct typing may be:

Edited: 24 Jan 2013, 7:50 a.m.

[Walter B]

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I correct typing may be:

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Sorry, my English is not sufficient for decoding that :-? And I don't see a difference to your previous post with respect to the equation. TIA for enlightenments.

Edited: 24 Jan 2013, 9:37 a.m.

[Raymond Wiker]

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Sorry, my English is not sufficient for decoding that :-? And I don't see a difference to your previous post with respect to the equation. TIA for enlightenments.

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Take another look at the right-hand side :-)

[Walter B]

Thanks! :-) A nice example for repetitive blindness ;-) So this solves the second problem, the first shall be solved by C.Ret IMO.

d:-)

[C.Ret]

Sorry for that.

The problem is the actual winter conditions … and …
… I have to stop drinking so much Jäger-Coffee when posting in the forum.

[Eric Delgado]

1/3x3/1=1

[Thomas Klemm]

Maybe some of you think it's useless but I definitely had some fun exploring the capabilities of the iPhone app using the '?' sign as the variable you're searching for.

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Here we ask for the percentage to double a value after 12 years:

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For these kind of calulations I'm probably faster with a calculator. Still nice!

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But then, where do you find inverse factorial on your calculator?

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This one was a little difficult to write on my iPhone. However you have e, pi and phi for free which isn't bad:

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And now we do the reverse:

Kind regards

Thomas

[Eddie W. Shore]

It does have solving capabilities - wow!

[Eddie W. Shore]

My Review of the MyScript app

I really like this app

Edited: 26 Jan 2013, 11:51 a.m.

[Alexander Oestert]

Re your review: at least in the Android app up to six decimal places can be set in the settings menu. On the iPhone it is limited to three at the moment and I haven't tested on an iPad.

[Eddie W. Shore]

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Re your review: at least in the Android app up to six decimal places can be set in the settings menu. On the iPhone it is limited to three at the moment and I haven't tested on an iPad.

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The iPad version is still limited to 3 decimal places. I will update my blog post. Thanks.

Edited: 27 Jan 2013, 9:44 a.m.