That's why, right now, voice-recognition is a good option only for people with vision limitations, repetitive stress injury sufferers, or sadomasochistic tendencies. Graffiti, a program included in the Palm operating system, allows users to enter information in something resembling normal handwriting. Millions of people use it, and others use one of Microsoft's PocketPC devices, an older Apple Newton, or a Palm with a handwriting-recognition program other than Graffiti. The technology has improved much, thanks to the many handheld users who spent the late 1990s as paying guinea pigs, but it still isn't perfect. I can almost imagine Palm guys in white coats watching me when I first played with mine.
Subject repeatedly pokes at the tiny screen with the even-tinier stylus, growing frustrated.
After failed attempts to create a semicolon, he buries the pen deep in his tympanum. The shape of the character you create with the stylus, the speed at which the strokes are made, even the rate at which that speed changes. Tricks like these let computers recognize an individual's writing with a high-degree of accuracy. Palm's Graffiti doesn't truly recognize users' handwriting. It requires that every user learn a specialized version of the alphabet and distinctly enter each letter in a small square entry field.