World: r3wp

I probably made a wrong choice, trying to parse the source on the 
fly instead of converting the xml source into nested blocks.

I'll have to build the convertion on both sides, so converting your 
code into using rebol blocks is going to be my choice.


I already have the xml part very well covered, so I'll dive into 
this in a few days.  thanks again.

Max, a task for you :) http://www.the8pen.com/index.html

Saw this on Gab's facebook comments

wow that's real research... seems extremely usable!

yeah .. I do my research on facebook

Looks doable in View and R2

yes, but with patent pending, it means we can't actually do it unless 
we get a license from them.

eh??

yep.

I don't think this sort of thing is copyrightable

otherwise we would also still be using visicalc

But patentable, yes. They didn't have software patents in the visicalc 
days.

of course it is. if some can patent double clicking on a portable 
device icon.. this most assuredly yes.

some countries software patents are not enforceable

and in fact, this is one of the cases where a patent is used in its 
rightfull way.. this is truely an invention, original and even fully 
developped.

I doubt it .. gestures for letters have been around for a long time

though the result seems easy to reproduce, the research and the original 
idea of how this is being approached is very nice.

it's evolution ... not revolution

since its not really gestures in the way I'm used to understand them.

builds on prior art

not really.. the only prior art it shares is in the fact that you 
scrub your fingers.. its not actually using shapes, but a very simple 
clockwise counting algorythm.

if you draw a semblance of a g and it turns it into a g .. what's 
new about that?

the only new thing is some lines on the screen :)

you don't draw a semblence of a G... you start up and turn left or 
right from 90 to 360 degres.

looks like a shorthand g to me

for those who learnt shorthand

so I would say both shorthand and gestures constitute prior art

no.. all letters are produced using the same gesture... turning clockwise 
or counter-clockwise.. its very smart.

that's it.

no special shape detection nothing actually mathy about it.

its probably doable in 100 rebol lines of code  :-)

well, I guess the answer lies in whether their patent application 
succeeds or not

yep.. but patent reviewers actually do not really research these 
things for more than one hour... so unless someone challenges it, 
and the claims are different than other alternate  character entry 
solutions, then they probably have an almost certainty in getting 
it.  it will be very easy to defend also, because its SO simple and 
doesn't rely on math algorythm just a dirt simple idea which I have 
never seen before.


this being said, its possible that the idea itself isn't new within 
this research field, but I've never seen this in a commercial form 
before.

I can imagine that HP will object

Did they perform the staircase test? Can it be used while walking 
up and down a flight of stairs?


Looks ok, but they made one mistake in assigning space to letting 
go of the gesture area at the center. That's too specific for a bumbling 
train ride, or where you can only pay partial attention to your device. 
Also, blind-typing and locating the center spot probably won't work. 
It's once again, not just the size of hands that are the problem, 
but the much more varied environment, in which you are operating 
your device.

You could glue a pimple on the screen

I watched the video and I'm not too impressed. Something like swype 
seems to work a lot faster. With that you define a whole word in 
one continuous stroke

But I've also had issues with Swype whenever I tried to use a word 
not in its dictionary.  Using SwiftKey for now, but 8pen is something 
I'm considering trying.

henrik, try typing on a (small) touchscreen when shacking, its even 
worse, this device doesn't need to be precise, which is the point.


now one thing they don't mention is that our brain has an internal 
"rest position" hard-wired, and that is where the center dot is very 
well tought.  whenever you move any part of you body, the moment 
you stop thinking about it, it goes back to its rest position by 
itself.  this is very obvious when you swipe you mouse quickly, you 
hand will go back to its original position by reflex.


so using this in a shacky environment, where I can squeeze the device 
in my hand will, IMHO, be much easier to use quickly.  its obvious 
it takes a little bit of time for your brain to associate the letters 
to direction and rotation amount, but since doing the next letter 
is just a question of going back to the rest position, I feel its 
very fast and easy to get used to.

view layout [box 200x200 effect [
    draw [
        push [
            scale 0.106 0.106 pen black 
            fill-pen red 
            line-width 14 
            box 0x0 1000x1000 
            fill-pen white 
            pen none 
            circle 500x500 170
        ]
    ]
]]

can anyone tell me how I can improve the rendering of the above circle 
?


its extremely ugly .  this is directly related to the use of the 
SCALE in the draw block. 


as the scale chanes, it seems that the quality of the circle improves... 
but I need this to be pretty when its small as well as when its very 
large.

chanes = increases

the real question (which I posted on FB as well, but in italian as 
I was commenting a friend's link), is whether there is any proof 
that this is "better" than swype

it's a bit like dvorak - as much as i like it, use it, and prefer 
it to qwerty, there is no actual independent study that proves that 
it is "better"

well, swype does require you to "aim" the letters... 8pen could be 
used by a blind person within a short time.

you're now making it special purpose.


don't forget that a lot of people already know the qwerty layout 
so "aiming" the letters is pretty natural. then there was also that 
other input method where it could figure out what you type even without 
a keyboard on screen (forgot the name)

here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9b8NlMd79w

sounds like you could combine the two .. but the reason I posted 
the link is because I thought it could be easily programmed in R

Whether some is better than something else appears to matter little 
when determining popularity