IF YOU get annoyed when people write circles or hearts above the letters i and j, instead of a dot, spare a thought for the developers of the handwriting recognition systems used in pen-based gadgets. Such habits can often leave their software floundering.
Now Microsoft鈥檚 Beijing research lab has developed an artificial intelligence tool to cope with slapdash handwriting. One of the biggest problems is 鈥渙vertracing鈥�, the reiteration of a single stroke, like the stalk of an h. This can look like multiple characters, but Microsoft鈥檚 new system can average out these strokes into a single character.
And as well as correcting circles that should be dots, it looks for and corrects dots or crosses that are not above the right letter. So far, the software only works with English text.
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