Using mobile phones to write in air

The ability to note down small pieces of information, quickly and easily, can be useful. This paper proposes a system called PhonePoint Pen that uses the in-built accelerometer in mobile phones to recognize human handwriting. By holding the phone like a pen, an user should be able to write short messages or draw simple diagrams in the air. The acceleration due to hand gestures can be translated into geometric strokes, and recognized as characters. The geometric images and/or characters can then be sent to the user’s email address for future reference. We implemented the PhonePoint Pen on the Nokia N95 platform, and evaluated it through real users. Results show that english characters can be identified with a median accuracy of 83%, if the users conform to a few constraints. Our ongoing and future work is focused on iteratively eliminating these constraints, with the prospect of developing a new input technology for personal devices.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: MOBISYS
• Authors: Sandip Agrawal, Ionut Constandache, Shravan Gaonkar, Romit Roy Choudhury, Kevin Caves, Frank DeRuyter
• Keywords: Computer Networks, Geometric Images, Hand Gestures, MOBISYS 2011, Nokia N95