Handwriting or scribbling was the only way to make a personal textual record before the typewriter started imitating standardized print records in the late 19th century. Handwriting is to textual ‘input’ what speech is to inscription in general: it is semiotically rich in terms of personality (no one does graphological analysis on a typescript if they are offering you a job), it is part of our panoply of physical rather than purely cognitive actions, and can be performed on anything from human skin (see the movie Quills on the Marquis de S) to the side of an Abrams tank. Paper has also been pretty successful as an inscription surface for the average handwriter.

The typewriter keyboard, perhaps modeled on the piano keyboard (i.e. choosing linearly from a small set of options for the ten fingers), has since evolved into the dominant input device for computers, and has reigned supreme in an IT economy of low memory and slowish processing power. Now that MIPs and memory are exploding, speech recognition and pen computing are set to take over some of our interface work. This means that we shall gradually free ourselves from the shackles of QWERTY, recreating the ‘natural’ individuality of spoken voices and above all of handwriting and scribbling. The chief attraction, though, of such input methods is that they are extremely portable.

Nowhere will this return to the affordances of handwriting become more marketable than in the mobile phone space. Although performances in SMS messaging using the arbitrary alphanumeric layout of the current generation of mobile keyboards can be spectacular, the hardware might end up as just a five-year wonder. These days, mobile manufacturers such as Nokia and Philips are announcing phones that are timidly moving towards scribble interfaces for texting that garbage-can the prestidigitatorial demands of these ‘older’ keyboards.

Nokia is developing a new phone with handwriting recognition system using a ‘scribble’ screen. Eventually this sort of technology should enable users to take notes from phones calls right into their phones. Using a different approach, the Philips 755 (see here for a negative review) features a touch screen and a new Tag It stylus that enables SMSing using an on-screen keyboard (OSK), rather than poking away at the hardware shell. With the Tag It feature, users will be able to handwrite language tags for anything they want to send to others; including voice, music, and images.

These new features combine the familiarity of eye/hand synchronization in handwriting (tapping the keyboard with a stylus) with the synergy that comes from converging texting/drawing in a single cognitive space (instead of switching programs to shift from writing to drawing). Most of all, they enable non-Latin alphabet languages to play on a level playing field in mobile media – witness Nokia’s recent release of an SMS service in Hindi. This new post-keyboarding regime should also give a boost to innovative language processing solutions, perhaps leveraging capabilities in closely tracking the statistics of personal language usage.

I remember Xerox introducing the same OSK design feature some 15 years ago for its multilingual computing effort. They called it a ‘virtual keyboard’, and it was intended to solve the problem of optimizing text input in more than one script in a single document The idea was to use an OSK with its familiar (localized) layout. Innumerable Macintosh and PC language kits also use(d) these OSKs as an intermediate step towards full product (e.g. hardware and software) localization.

Presumably this new generation of m-phones will also draw on predictive text input as used in current keypad inputting (and where the Canadian firm Zi Corps and the American Tegic probably share the market, especially for Asian scripts) to speed up the handwriting process, though whether this would get in the way of scribbling style remains to be seen. Another interesting option for inputting to mobiles or PDAs is to use the Dasher system (well worth a look) that uses a sort of dynamic OSK based on spelling statistics and still under testing. It claims to be able to input text using eye tracking of the screen at 25 words a minute, and is gradually expanding its language range.

If you’ve never had a chance to try out text input via speech recognition, Jon Udell has captured his own attempts at using the latest release of Dragon – NaturallySpeaking 8. He was pretty upbeat about the experience and you can see why here – just wait for the text to unfurl and self-correct or propose word solutions. He concludes:

It’s been a couple of years since I tried dictation, so what you’re seeing in that video is basically a new user of the product learning not only how to dictate but also how to edit with voice commands. Training, prior to this video, was minimal. I spent a few minutes reading a prepared text. But I declined the offer to have Dragon absorb samples of my writing, and just dove right in. The result was, by far, the best out-of-the-box experience I’ve ever had with this technology.

Subsequently I let Dragon read all of the weblog postings I’ve written in the last couple of years. Following that, I dictated and sent an email message, reasonably efficiently and in a completely hands-free manner. That’s something I’ve never done before.

Will I become a regular user? Probably not. I’ve learned to manage my RSI problem with a regime of stretching and exercise. I can still produce correct copy much faster with my fingers than with my voice, and much of the editing I do involves constructs (XHTML markup, programming-language punctuation) that aren’t (yet) open to voice command. Still, it’s great to know that if I want to give my hands a rest now and then, there’s an alternate way to produce prose.

This is an airy story. The New Scientist recently reported the following:

An array of rat brain cells has successfully flown a virtual F-22 fighter jet. The cells could one day become a more sophisticated replacement for the computers that control uncrewed aerial vehicles or, in the nearer future, form a test-bed for drugs against brain diseases such as epilepsy

Even more recently, .MIT news reported:

Aeronautics researchers at MIT have developed a manned-to-unmanned aircraft guidance system that allows a pilot in one plane to guide another unmanned airplane by speaking commands in English. In a flight test, the guidance system performed flawlessly in flight tests involving a Boeing F-15 fighter jet and a Lockheed T-33 trainer fighter jet at Edwards Air Force Base in June. The pilotless vehicle (…) responded to sudden changes in plan and avoided unexpected threats en route to its destination, in real time.

Uncrewed, unmanned – we soon won’t need a word for these planes piloted by the brains cells of Rattus Rattus. Maybe RR could be be taught to type virtual English as well, and take over this blog.

If you use MSN Messenger and like playing English language games with chatterbots, try the beta version of Spleak, a female avatar produced by IMT Labs, a Danish start-up dedicated to enhancing the web interface experience. You can download Spleak for free and then yak away.

The underlying idea is that Spleak will act as an interface to information and eventually other services over and from the web. For this beta version, you can ask for word definitions, find out facts on U.S. presidents (!) and even ask for a Shakespeare play to read. Spleak naturally has Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, which then unfurls a dozen or so lines at a time in your Messaging window. Well, it’s a start. This beta is designed to help IMT Lab build up a corpus of questions, language usage etc. to expand the knowledge base and enrich the user experience. But it is not clear whether the program actually uses your query to consult existing web resources.

If you start trying to chat Spleak up, she does pretty well at evading the issue. If you treat her like ELIZA, the mythic shrinkbot program built by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966, and tell Spleak you have a problem, she’ll probably reply “Whatever.” And when I asked why she’s called Spleak, she offered me a spell checker. As Hamlet would have said, Glet thlee to a nlunnery!

UK schools are to be given official guidance (a 60 page booklet called Introducing the Grammar of Talk) on how to teach pupils standard spoken English. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority says teaching about speaking is more difficult for many teachers than teaching writing skills, for which there is a well-developed system of grammar. It hopes the initiative will improve their social skills and career prospects.

Meanwhile in Poland, there is outrage about how Wojciech Pormorski has been told by the Hamburg (Germany) city authorities that regular dialogue in Polish with his daughters, aged seven and four, would hinder their integration into German society. He is separated from his wife and has been denied access to their daughters after refusing to guarantee that he would speak to them only in German.