Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS

Posted By: Ryan Monday, December 22, 2003 10:31:57 AM

Decuma has begun selling their OnSpot input software for all high resolution Palm OS devices, previously only found on select Clies. Decuma's OnSpot input system is an alternative to built in handwriting recognition.

OnSpot Technology is based upon the patented Geometrical Invariant Technology (GIT), which offers several advantages compared with traditional methods for handwriting recognition, such as directly using the same input area for writing, presentation of recognized letters, and editing/formatting of text.

Decuma OnSpot for Palm OSDecuma's software focuses on the human writing process and allows easy and fast handwriting input of all characters used in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. Users can define their own symbols, or 'short cuts,' and add personal characters at their desire.

OnSpot Technology is different from other handwriting recognition technology because it allows the user to directly use the same input area for correction, editing, and formatting.

Handango now lists Decuma OnSpot Handwriting Recognition as a new downloadable program available for $29.99 with a $5 discount until the end of the year. Previously, one could only for get the software bundled with an OS 5 Sony Clie. It is now available for all high resolution Palm OS 5 handhelds. It requires 480k of free memory.

Thanks to Alex Bosco for the tip.

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Sounds promising

Zippy @ 12/22/2003 11:00:25 AM #
Anyone have it and care to post a review?

Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS

kaiallard @ 12/22/2003 11:01:06 AM #
it is rather interesting that palm users have to pay for this while pocket PC has this sort of thing built in already... then again palm and PPC cant be really compared with each other...

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
mikecane @ 12/22/2003 11:49:39 AM #
Please! What PPC has built-in is Jot!, I believe. YECCH!

Decuma is the bomb!

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
acaltabiano @ 12/22/2003 12:43:16 PM #
Actually, mike, I think that he was refering to the "transcriber" for PPC. It it actually pretty cool. JOT is what comes standard on POS 5.3.

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
SKA @ 12/22/2003 12:47:10 PM #
Transcriber has same engine as calligrapher, the same company that make Newton HWR. Transcriber is built in freebie, along with block recognizer and letter recognizer. The jot one is letter recognizer, the grafitti is block recognizer.

Decuma for PPC was available to PPC about 2 years ago, specially for Japanese market. But the latin version doesn't come close to transcriber/HWR since it's full screen and mix cursive, instead of vitual grafitti, two stroke input.

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
rsc1000 @ 12/22/2003 2:06:18 PM #
Glad they didn't include this w/ POS or any other Transcriber type of thing - it sucks. I hated transcriber on PPCs - this waiting while it does its feeble attempt to figure out what you just entered. Irritating. i don't know any PPC users who ever use Transcriber - but i know a few who brag about it as a feature;)

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
mikecane @ 12/22/2003 3:42:51 PM #
XScriber on PPC doesn't use an input box, hence my jump to Jot! on PPC.

I think Decuma's input box method is superior and I'd really like to see it working on a PPC. I really liked playting with it on a CLIE NX.

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
JonathanChoo @ 12/22/2003 7:28:48 PM #
Transcriber is useless.

Generic Casio > Psion 5/StarTac > Vx > m505 > Sony N770C > Sony T625C/Ericsson T39m > Sony NR70V > Toshiba e310 > Tungsten T/Ericsson T68m > HP h2210 > Tungsten T3/Ericsson T610
RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
abosco @ 12/22/2003 10:47:15 PM #
Decuma is the one and only thing I find superior on my NX80v than on anything else out there. Other than that, it gets its doors blown in, especially for the price. Well, maybe the camera for its size and quality.

I find Decuma's input method to be very nice, even natural. You write on a line, and once you finish writing to the edge of the screen, you start at the left again. It automatically inserts a space. If you press the green arrow, it doesn't insert a space, but just sends the text. Having played with PPC's Transcriber, and even a very limited time with Calligrapher, it's safe to say HWR over the text just doesn't work. How is it supposed to know the difference between a text highlight and a deletion? With the Decuma box up, there's still a large 320x320 area to write in, and there's no fumbling or confusion between the text and the hardwriting. It's very smooth. It still needs some tweaking, though.

I saw somewhere somebody criticized it for being slow to recognize and only sometimes putting in a space. RTFM, period! It solves both issues.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T616

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
SKA @ 12/22/2003 11:28:04 PM #
oh please, not another PPC expert.

-there is a setting to insert space after a word or not
-pause to indicate next input is also customizable.
-deletion? select then backspace gesture
-highlight? underline the words selected
-user can write whereever he feels like it. hell keep writing in an imaginary square box on the bottom just like decuma if you like, it'll still be the same. side way slanted, vertical..whichever way you like.

Decuma is designed for japanese and chiense character, latin feature is a bonus. It's been around for PPC for over 2 years, nobody cares, because transcriber works much better.

but hey, .... it's kinda hard to reason around here. just like trying to say there are use for .mp3 and multimedia 2 years ago.

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
abosco @ 12/22/2003 11:43:01 PM #
For once, I wasn't talking about you, ska. I was referring to another poster, not sure if it was this thread or not.

>>-there is a setting to insert space after a word or not

Tapping the green box = no space. Continue overwriting the words = space.

>>-pause to indicate next input is also customizable.

So is Decuma. That's why I said RTFM. Know what that means?

>>-deletion? select then backspace gesture
>>-highlight? underline the words selected

Yes, that's what I mean. You have a full word document that takes up the entire length of the screen. Your handwriting is already on the screen, and you need to highlight something in the text itself, not the HWR. It gets confused. Not like it's a fault of the machine, since it's pretty damn tough to differentiate the two. It's just that writing on the screen and in a specific input box have different advantages.

>>-user can write whereever he feels like it. hell
>>keep writing in an imaginary square box on the
>>bottom just like decuma if you like, it'll still be
>>the same. side way slanted, vertical..whichever way you like.

You obviously are not interested in understanding another perspective, so my advice to you is go to hell. How's that for clarity?

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T616

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
Timothy Rapson @ 12/23/2003 8:24:18 PM #
Abosco is absolutely right, of course. The problem with Transcribers ability to write anywhere on the screen is that you can edit the text. Since Transcriber is so totally lame at getting the text right in the first place, it needs a lot of editing. The whole debacle is why almost no one uses Transcriber on the PPC, though many brag on it. I suppose 1 in 100 PPC users actually use it. Good on 'em. I don't expect Decuma to really do much better.

I'll take FITALY and it's 30-40 wpm any time.

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
abosco @ 12/23/2003 10:18:31 PM #
>>most of my friends use transcriber too

No, your blowup dolls don't count. How many times do I need to tell you this?

If they're YOUR friends, then they're definitely not your average PPC user.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T616

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
TASKA @ 12/24/2003 11:29:23 AM #
... as oppose to YOUR friends, mister Palm expert? (eggspurt)
RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
mikecane @ 12/24/2003 12:29:36 PM #
>>>No, your blowup dolls don't count. How many times do I need to tell you this?

Hahahahaha! And, bosco, he uses HELIUM!

>>>If they're YOUR friends, then they're definitely not your average PPC user.

He has friends?



RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
abosco @ 12/24/2003 5:08:24 PM #
>>... as oppose to YOUR friends, mister Palm expert? (eggspurt)

Oh man, you got me there. Good one. Eggspurt? Is that what you do to these dolls - spurt eggs on them? Still shooting blanks, ska? Too young?

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T616

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
mikecane @ 12/25/2003 9:16:30 AM #
Geez, this is getting disgusting. But when ska's around, that's to be expected...

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
TASKA @ 12/25/2003 10:02:23 AM #
excuse me, you have to ask Bosco why he knows so much about blow up doll and such...
RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
mikecane @ 12/25/2003 10:14:15 AM #
Hahahahah. This is great. A perfect example of Good Will to Men on this day of days of daze...

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
;-) @ 12/25/2003 7:09:21 PM #
Oh man, you got me there. Good one. Eggspurt? Is that what you do to these dolls - spurt eggs on them? Still shooting blanks, ska? Too young?

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T616


You really are a disgusting little child. I hope some day you'll grow up.




It's just too big.

RE: Decuma OnSpot Now Available for Palm OS
mikecane @ 12/27/2003 1:26:11 PM #
Now wait one minute there. *I'm* the one who gets to beat up on the child!

Worthless

phoneboy @ 12/22/2003 11:33:48 AM #
I have this program on my UX-50. It is worthless. It considerably increases the time it takes to write anything because you have to write the word, wait for "translation" into text, make corrections, if any are needed, then "send" it to the document you're working on. Sometimes it places a space between words for you, sometimes it doesn't. It's also much less reliable at recognising characters than Grafiti (given that I am used to Grafiti.)

Nice, but...

xavier @ 12/22/2003 12:30:02 PM #
Downloaded the trial today and it works quite nicely really. Perhaps the trouble with the UX series is the processor is not fast enough. My TT3 handles the translation quite quickly.

The great disappointment is that they have not designed this with the TT3 in mind. It does not use the VG area, and to invoke it you have to select Keyboard from the Edit menu and then you have a Grafitti area and a Decuma area! Would like it and consider purchasing it if you could easily switch the VG area to the Decuma area. Bit of a hassle which may keep me from using it. Also doesn't work in Documents to go because you can't invoke it.

Sigh, I had really been looking forward to this on my TT3, even emailed the Decuma folks a few months back and they said at that time they had no plans on a general release. Perhaps that's why they don't have specific TT3 implementation yet.

Guess I'll keep waiting....

RE: Nice, but...
sub_tex @ 12/22/2003 1:08:44 PM #
It does not use the VG area, and to invoke it you have to select Keyboard from the Edit menu and then you have a Grafitti area and a Decuma area!

This sounds like they let the product out the door without doing any testing. On the Clies it's either Decuma or Grafitti, never both.

Let's hope they fix this soon. I liked Decuma a lot when using it on the NX80 in CUSA.

WARNING
andrew.fleisher @ 12/22/2003 2:17:10 PM #
Decuma does not work on the T|C. Just installed the demo and there is no ability to activate it, even though the instructions say that it will replace the pop-up keyboard.

Regards,

Andrew Fleisher
PG Team Leader
PalmGear.com
http://www.palmgear.com
THE source for your Palm Powered world!

PG Team Leaders are not paid employees of PalmGear.com. The views expressed may not represent those of PalmGear.com.

RE: Nice, but...
mikecane @ 12/22/2003 3:44:59 PM #
>>>It does not use the VG area, and to invoke it you have to select Keyboard from the Edit menu and then you have a Grafitti area and a Decuma area!

That is incredible! How could they be so brain dead?!

I'd been looking forward to this -- and if I had a TT3 and had gotten this, I'd be aiming WMDs at Decuma!

RE: Nice, but...
bcombee @ 12/22/2003 8:17:10 PM #
The Tungsten C doesn't send the "keyboard dialog" notification that other Palm OS 5 devices send. While it could be hacked into the OS using the eventDequeud notification, a better fix would be to get PalmOne to fix their customized OS.

--
Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

Nifty but nothing more than a niche product IMHO

hkklife @ 12/22/2003 2:44:30 PM #
What people *really* would pay good money for would be a Graffiti 1 plug-in/package from Xerox (or from Palm, officially licensed from Xerox).

TealScript it nice and all but in direct comparisons between a T3 and a T1, it's slower and more prone to input errors than a Palm with G1 installed natively. The G1 work-around, while handy,
1: Not legal
2: Buggy on T3
3: Of no use to Sony/Garmin etc owners

I'd pay $20-$30 in a heartbeat to continue to use a refined, polished, and stable G1 on my T3-as would many others users out there, I'd imagine. Come on PalmSource/Xerox, it cannot be too hard to implement something like that. It'd be guaranteed $ in the bank too!


RE: Nifty but nothing more than a niche product IMHO
mikecane @ 12/22/2003 3:46:20 PM #
Bravo!

RE: Nifty but nothing more than a niche product IMHO
JonathanChoo @ 12/22/2003 7:30:34 PM #
TealScript is wonderful letting me use use Grafitti1 like characters while also using some nice Grafitti2 features.

Generic Casio > Psion 5/StarTac > Vx > m505 > Sony N770C > Sony T625C/Ericsson T39m > Sony NR70V > Toshiba e310 > Tungsten T/Ericsson T68m > HP h2210 > Tungsten T3/Ericsson T610
RE: Nifty but nothing more than a niche product IMHO
hkklife @ 12/22/2003 7:53:14 PM #
As I stated earlier, G1 mode on Tealscript is slow (ie laggy) and far more error-prone than G1 on my old T1 (by far the best Graffiti 1 input experience I have ever had on a Palm).

The *only* G2 feature I am even remotely fond of is the caps in the middle trick but that can be grafted into G1 via a 3rd party utility. I'd be more than happy to make a vertical stroke to do a caps letter if it meant I had "real" G1 functionality again.



FITALY can, but blondes can't?!

mikecane @ 12/22/2003 3:55:02 PM #
http://fitaly.com/fitalyvirtualt3/fitalyvirtualannounce.htm

-- uses the Soft Graffiti area.

The one the Blondes of Sweden *didn't* use for Decuma OnSpot. (Couldn't they *find* it? Duhhhh...)

RE: FITALY can, but blondes can't?!
xavier @ 12/22/2003 6:07:19 PM #
Thanks for the fitaly link! Now instead of VG and Decuma I can do Fitaly and Decuma. Someone will surely come out with a patch to allow all three to be used simultaneously. What a great world we live in. Who cares that there would be no room left to see the text being entered. That's what freedom is all about, right???

RE: FITALY can, but blondes can't?!
mikecane @ 12/22/2003 6:36:09 PM #
Well, some text just isn't *meant* to be seen...

don't waste your money

jss1432 @ 12/27/2003 2:20:11 PM #
I tried Decuma and found it to be a pretty inefficient way of entering text. It seems like a gimmick to me: it looks appealing because it more resembles writing on paper. But PDAs aren't paper and writing on a PDA like you would on paper is not the best way of entering text.

If you have the time, learn Graffiti or something similar. Otherwise, a simple on-screen keyboard is a faster, more intuitive, and more reliable way of entering text--and it won't cost you extra either.


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