The UK Mobile Phone Blog

PhonePoint Pen: The future of handwriting recognition?

Motion sensitivity is a feature that is becoming ever more popular as manufacturers strive to get the most out of new technologies and implement them in their latest offerings. With a multitude of phones sporting an accelerometer, users can hold their mobile on its side and the screen will match the orientation. Fairly standard stuff. We’ve also seen Sony Ericson’s take on motion based interaction with the Walkman range featuring shake control, allowing for tracks to be skipped by shaking the phone to one side. And in its most popular form, we’ve encountered a new era of mobile phone gaming with motion based games launching on multiple platforms such as the LG Arena, the upcoming Sony Ericsson Yari and, most famously, the all conquering iPhone. So, what’s next for mobile phone motion sensitivity? Hand Writing recognition of course!

The PhonePoint Pen, a result of research at North Carolina’s Duke University, is an experimental new system for capturing gestures made with a mobile phone. While that does sound rather vague, specifically the PhonePoint Pen will let you write in the air and then interpret your movements into letters. So, drawing an ‘A’ in the air will in turn input an ‘A’ on your phone. Don’t believe us? Check out the video below. And while the gesture controls might look slightly over the top at the moment (you’d raise a few eyebrows using this on the Tube!), if the technology can be shrunken down to track more subtle movements then this definitely has a promising future.