Smart QUILL - Seminar Paper

ABSTRACT

With the introduction of handheld computers, the present trend has started preferring small computers to do computation. This has made computer manufacturers to go for almost gadget like computers. Reducing the size of handheld computers can only be taken so far before they become unusable. Keyboards become so tiny you require needle-like fingers to operate them and screens that need constant cursor controls to read simple text.        

 The introduction of SmartQuill has solved some of these problems. Lyndsay Williams of Microsoft, UK is the inventor of SmartQuill,a pen that can remember the words that is used to write, and then transform them into computer text. The pen is slightly larger than ordinary fountain pen, with a screen on the barrel. User can enter information into these applications by pushing a button .Information can be entered using his/her own handwriting. User can use any platform for writing like paper, screen, tablet or even air. There is also a small three-line screen to read the information stored in the pen. Users can scroll down the screen by tilting the pen. The pen is then plugged in to an electronic docking station, text data is transmitted to a desktop computer, printer, modem or to a mobile telephones to send files electronically.

INTRODUCTION

Lyndsay Williams of Microsoft Research's Cambridge UK lab is the inventor of the Smartquill, a pen that can remember the words that it is used to write, and then transform them into computer text . The idea that "it would be neat to put all of a handheld-PDA type computer in a pen," came to the inventor in her sleep. “It’s the pen for the new millennium,” she says. Encouraged by Nigel Ballard, a leading consultant to the mobile computer industry, Williams took her prototype to the British Telecommunications Research Lab, where she was promptly hired and given money and institutional support for her project. The prototype, called SmartQuill, has been developed by world-leading research laboratories run by BT (formerly British Telecom) at Martlesham, eastern England. It is claimed to be the biggest revolution in handwriting since the invention of the pen.

      The sleek and stylish prototype pen is different from other electronic pens on the market today in that users don't have to write on a special pad in order to record what they write. User could use any surface for writing such as paper, tablet, screen or even air. The SmartQuill isn't all space-age, though -- it contains an ink cartridge so that users can see what they write down on paper. SmartQuill contains sensors that record movement by using the earth's gravity system, irrespective of the platform used. The pen records the information inserted by the user. Your words of wisdom can also be uploaded to your PC through the “digital inkwell”, while the files that you might want to view on the pen are downloaded to SmartQuill as well. 

It is an interesting idea, and it even comes with one attribute that makes entire history of pens pale by comparison—if  someone else picks your SmartQuill and tries to write with it- it won’t. Because user can train the pen to recognize a particular handwriting. Hence SmartQuill recognizes only the owner’s handwriting. SmartQuill is a computer housed within a pen which allows you to do what a normal personal organizer does .It’s really mobile because of it’s smaller size and one handed use. People could use the pen in the office to replace a keyboard, but the main attraction will be for users who usually take notes by hand on the road and type them up when returning to the office. SmartQuill will let them skip the step of typing up their notes.

                  

WORKING OF SMARTQUILL

SmartQuill is slightly larger than an ordinary fountain pen. Users can enter information into these applications by pushing a button on the pen and writing down what they would like to enter .The SmartQuill does not need a screen to work. The really clever bit of the technology is its ability to read handwriting not only on paper but on any flat surface – horizontal or vertical. There is also a small three-line screen to read the information stored in the pen; users can scroll down the screen by tilting the pen slightly. The user trains the pen to recognize a particular handwriting style - no matter how messy it is, as long as it is consistent, the pen can recognize it. The handwritten notes are stored on hard disk of the pen. The pen is then plugged into an electronic "inkwell", text data is transmitted to a desktop computer, printer, or modem or to a mobile telephone to send files electronically. Up to 10 pages of notes can be stored locally on the pen. A tiny light at the tip allows writing in the dark. When the pen is kept idle for some time, power gets automatically off.

FEATURES

• Display technology used in SmartQuill 
• Handwriting recognition and signature verification
• Display scrolls using tilt sensors
• Communication with other devices
• Memory and power 

DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY

Technology used in SmartQuill for display is Kopin Corp’s Cyber  Display technology. Cyber Display is a  ¼  inch diagonal LCD that  uses  circuitry built on a silicon wafer, then removed and mounted to glass.  The displays are integrated to miniature monitors using its own backlighting, 

optics, ICS and packaging.  

HANDWRITING RECOGNITION AND SIGNATURE VERIFICATION                                                               

Accelerometers measure hand movement in 2 or 3 planes

On board DSP converts to ASCII characters for pen applications

Write on paper, flat surface, vertical wall or in air

Single character recognition on pen

Record cursive letters and download to PC for decoding

Password by signature recognition

                      

SmartQuill works by measuring the pen's movements and matching them to the movements that produce letters and words programmed into its memory. It's similar to the way a microphone detects sound. Consistency of handwriting, rather than neatness, is the only condition for accuracy.

There are 2 techniques used for this purpose :-

1. Accelerometer technology

2. Handwriting recognition software

ACCELEROMETER TECHNOLOGY

This technology uses a device called Accelerometer which is used for measuring motion. A tiny accelerometer in a pen could be used to detect the stops and starts, arcs and loops of handwriting, and transmit this information to a small microprocessor that would make sense of it as text.  There's also the possibility of viewing a full page of text through a special monocular magnified "virtual" screen that could be built into the end of the pen. Invisible writing in air is achieved through this unique technology called accelerometer that monitors hand movements and can also be used as a ‘virtual hinge’ to scroll around the small screen on the pen and detect left or right-handed use. It records movement by using the earth's gravity system, whether you write on paper or in the air. Hence it is independent of surface used. Movements are stored within the SmartQuill. This information is transmitted on to a small microprocessor that would make sense of it as a text displayed on the sleek built in screen. 

There are 2 types of accelerometer :-

1. Two Axes Accelerometer :- This accelerometer measures acceleration in two axes. An example for Two Axes Accelerometer is ADXL202           Accelerometer.

2. Three Axes Accelerator :- This accelerometer measures acceleration in three axes. An example for Three Axes Accelerometer is Tronics            +/- 2g accelerometer.

Prototype of SmartQuill

This SmartQuill prototype records writing on paper for radio transmission to a pocket pc, desktop, cell phone or tablet computer. The accelerometer tracks the angular movement of the top of the pen at an angle in the air and these angles plotted as x/y position on pc screen.

An early hardware prototype picture shows, left to right, tilt sensor , PIC 8 bit microcontroller, batteries, and 433Mhz 1200 Baud radio transmitter. Currently a radio receiver on the RS232 port of a pc records the pen movement for analysis via pc. The pen will power down after a period of no movement so doesn't need an on/off switch. The battery life is approximately 22 hours.

HANDWRITING RECOGNITION SOFTWARE

This software embedded in the microprocessor of the pen is used to recognize handwriting of the user. Pen works in conjunction with a regular PC on to which users install special handwriting recognition software. The handwriting recognition software translates movements in to text on screen.

 Handwriting recognition software constitutes two major phases:

    

                 1. Handwriting transcription

                 2. Handwriting recognition

Handwriting transcription

In this phase, the recorded acceleration signals are then transcripted to it’s original form. Here this aspect is solved using ‘simple’ double integration method in order to retrace the pen tip movement on paper.

Method

In order for this principle to work properly, we have to solve two main problems:

    Firstly, we have to know pen’s spatial orientation in order to withdraw the earth gravity component to the measured accelerations.

Secondly, we have to succeed in the double integration, which is to solve all the derivation problems due to this method.

Handwriting recognition

The second huge aspect is the characters and signatures recognition. The hardware (accelerometers plus contact detector) embedded in the pen has proved a really efficient combination for this application.

Method

The same method is used to recognize the characters written by a single user and to find whose signature is the one that has just been done.

We use a simple Euclidian distance as the comparison process, and of course the decision process is the smaller distance found.

The first step -1- consists in creating the reference database for the characters as for the signatures. For this a mean signal is computed for each recorded symbol.

The second  step is the recognition process

1. For the creation of database, each symbol was reproduced several times and a mean normalized symbol was computed.

2. For recognition process, the unknown symbol is first normalized, the distance between this symbol and the entire database symbol is computed. Then the unknown symbol is recognized as the one with the lowest distance.

Protocol   

The results shown in this part are for signature recognition but they are similar as the one obtained for character recognition .

     

    The corpus used for signatures was made by 10 different signatures from 10 different people. They made 10 attempts for the database, and 5 others for the test base.

Display scrolls by tilting screen

By tilting the pen, user can choose applications and scroll through with out using scroll buttons. Below is an image of SmartQuill tilting Screen designed by Lyndsay Williams for BT Labs in 1997. The pen would align text if it was held in left or right hand so the text was the correct way up for left or right handed people. This was done by using Micro Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) tilt sensors to measure tilt angle to earth. The SmartQuill microcontroller read the angle and then mapped the large screen display onto the small 4 line display. SmartQuill could also scroll through pages of display by tilting it in the hand and power off if no hand movement was detected or pen was flat on a desk. The demonstration unit below shows display inverting as SmartQuill was inverted in the hand. The choice of words was limited to what characters the LCD display driver could show while upside down (left hand picture) – only 14 of the 26 letters of the alphabet were usable. These 14 characters were then processed by anagram software to produce 900 words that used these characters. The shopping list below was produced from this limited dictionary to demonstrate the text inversion . 

COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER DEVICES

Earlier SmartQuill models developed by BT laboratories communicated with the PC via a radio transmitter, but the current prototype hooks up to a PC via a cable and electronic docking station called an "inkwell." .The data stored in the memory is uploaded to the personal computer when it is placed in to a docking station. An electronic docking station is a small cabinet to which a laptop or notebook computer can be attached for use as a desktop computer, usually have a connector for externally connected devices, such as hard drives or scanners and ports that can be linked to components such as keyboard, monitor and printer. It can also be connected to printer, modem or mobile phones to send data electronically.

The output accelerometer signals from the pen are digitized with a National Instrument capture card with a frequency Fe of 1000Hz and a low pass filter at Fc=1/3*Fe .

Future models could receive e-mails and pager messages via a wireless messaging system.This enables two-way wireless communication with other computing devices .

MEMORY

SmartQuill has 4MB EEPROM memory. At a time, up to 10 pages of notes can be stored locally on the pen. The data is stored in the memory on the pen until it is uploaded to the personal computer. SmartQuill works by measuring the pen's movements and matching them to the movements that produce letters and words programmed into its memory. It's similar to the way a microphone detects sound.

POWER

SmartQuill is powered by AAA battery. It will run for about 25hrs on a single AAA battery. The pen exhibits automatic power on/off system. The pen will power down after a period of no movement. So it supports automatic on/off system.

APPLICATIONS

1. SmartQuill isn’t all space-age. It contains an ink cartridge so that users can see what they write on paper .Hence a simple application of SmartQuill is that it write notes on paper. This information recorded in the pen  is then downloaded to PC.

2. The information stored in the pen can be input to other devices such as mobile phones, printers, modems, desktop computers  etc for different applications.

3. It also provides handheld  computer applications such as digital diary, contacts, calculators etc.

4. It is used for receiving pager and e-mail messages. This is possible through recent technology involved in SmartQuill, the wireless messaging system which allows two way communication between devices . 

5. SmartQuill synchronizes files, e-mails and messages to PC.

6. SmartQuill can be used for voice record and supports speech recognition.     Voice record is made possible through ADPCM speech compression .

7. SmartQuill also allows third party to add on applications. 

ASSETS

1. One of the major asset is that SmartQuill does not need a screen to work. This is possible through revolutionary "Spatial Sensing" system which uses semiconductor accelerometers. Accelerometers senses  pen/hand movement instead of shapes.

2. SmartQuill provides intuitive user interface.

3. Security – Security is another important feature. It is made possible through two facilities:

a. It  enables  handwriting recognition .User can train the pen to       recognize a particular handwriting style. The symbols regularly used by user gets stored in the memory, by frequent use of the pen. Hence the pen accepts only the owner’s handwriting and rejects intruders handwriting.

b. It enables signature verification. Hence Passwords could be entered in    the form of signatures .  

4. The SmartQuill is also a 3D-mouse, when twisted in air in a certain way it enables scrolling of the screen. It also automatically detects left or right handed use.

5. Power saving 

a. Small screen size requires less battery power .

b. No movement of the pen causes auto power down

6. SmartQuill is all mobile, smaller in size and enables one-handed use.

CONCLUSION

SmartQuill will be brought to the market by the end of  2004.The estimated cost of this futuristic pen is around $200.SmartQuill supports two factors : small size and convenient use. The future of SmartQuill ensures all computation power the user needs right inside the pen. Reducing the size of handheld computers can only be taken so far before they become unusable. Keyboards become so tiny you require needle-like fingers to operate them and screens that need constant cursor controls to read simple text. The introduction of SmartQuill is the best solution for this problem.