Pen computing: challenges and applications

Pen computing as a fieId broadly includes computers and applications in which a pen is the main input device. This field continues to draw a lot of attention from researchers because there are a number of applications where the pen is the most convenient form of input. These include: 1. preparing a first draft of a document and concentrating on content creation; 2. a socially acceptable form of capturing information in meetings, that is quieter than typing and creates minimal visual barrier; 3. applications that need privacy; 4. entering letters in ideographic languages like Chinese and Japanese and non-letter entries like graphics, music and gestures; and 5. interaction with multi-modal systems. The advent of electronic tablets in the late 1950s precipitated considerable activity in the area of pen computing. This interest ebbed in the 1970's, and was renewed in the 1980's, primarily due to advances in pen hardware technology and improvement in user-interfaces and handwriting recognition algorithms. There are still however, a number of challenges that need to be addressed before pen computing can address the needs listed above to a acceptable level of user satisfaction. In the paper, an overview of three aspects of pen computing are presented: pen input hardware, handwriting recognition and pen computer applications.