Web Equation

[Thomas Klemm]

With Web Equation a written formula can be translated to LaTeX.

I assume it's easier on an iPad than on the iPhone but it's surprisingly easy to enter an equation:

A link to WolframAlpha is provided that will do the calculation:

In addition to that a link to generate a gif is found just next to it:

Or you can just copy the LaTeX:

\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-x^{2}}dx

Or if you prefer use the generated MathML.

Cheers

Thomas

[Chris Smith]

Or you can just plug it into your 50g and get the result without the irritating and inaccurate interpretation phase and wiping your jammy fingers over your black mirror and having to throw the whole thing to another country and back over the internet for everyone to see, store and analyse.

Progress?

For reference, I'm of the internet generation and rather deeply involved in it all at a technical level but I don't get why half the applications out there have the massively over-distributed architecture that they do or why touch is somehow superior to buttons, pens and mice.

[Thomas Klemm]

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Or you can just plug it into your 50g

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But then you first have to "dredge the abysmal manual" to find out how to do that. It all boils down to the question on how often you have to do a task and how familiar you are with the tool that you can use. I don't mind writing LaTeX but I don't use that often. The same with calculating an integral or solving a quadratic equation. So at least for me it's easier to write the formula on a screen, because otherwise I'd have to consult a manual or a cheat-sheet or whatever. On the other hand I don't like to type longer texts on a touch screen: I certainly prefer keys. Or then I dictate it to Dragon. So I think there are multiple ways for input and they all have their application.

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Progress?

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Depends on how you define that. But I'm certainly intrigued by how well the handwriting is recognized.

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having to throw the whole thing to another country and back over the internet for everyone to see, store and analyse

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The fact that a handwritten formula can be recognized has nothing to do with the use of the internet to calculate that formula. So if I had Mathematica running on my iPhone I could use that instead. On the other hand we already use a lot of other internet-services maybe without being fully aware of all of their consequences.

Kind regards

Thomas

[Nick_S]

Thanks for this link. The idea of hand written equations automatically rendered as LaTeX is appealing (as is the ability to then solve them). If I were to use this facility a lot, I would get a little Wacom tablet and pen to interface to my computer making input straightforward.

Nick

Edited: 21 Mar 2013, 10:04 a.m.