It just don't seem right. The English alphabet has only 26 letters, while Japanese relies on at least 2,000 characters. Recognizing handwritten English has got to be easier than recognizing handwritten Japanese, right?
Wrong.
Turns out that the really difficult problem in handwriting recognition is dealing with cursive writing - figuring out where one letter ends and the next begins. And whereas English handwriting is typically cursive, the Japanese invariably print their characters as discrete blocks. So recognition accuracy is much higher with Japanese.
This difference helps explain why Apple's first Newton (made by Sharp) flopped in the US, while Sharp's own Zaurus (You know, like in dino-zaurus. A poke at Apple's "Newt"?) has been a big hit in Japan. Since late 1993, when the "personal information tool" (Sharp's term for PDA) hit the Japanese market, the company has shipped over 300,000 units.
The PI-3000 is listed at ¥ 65,000 (US$650), The Zaurus PI-4000FX, which hit stores in July, comes equipped with an add-on fax modem ¥ 91,000 (US$910). At last - something to plug into those cute little Japanese ISDN phones.
ELECTRIC WORD
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