Inkwell, or simply Ink, is the name of the handwriting recognition

Handwriting recognition

Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...

 technology developed by Apple Inc. and built into the Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 operating system. Introduced in an update to Mac OS X v10.2

Mac OS X v10.2

Mac OS X version 10.2 "Jaguar" is the third major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X v10.1 code name Puma and preceded Mac OS X Panther...

 "Jaguar", Inkwell can translate English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, and German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 writing. The technology made its debut as "Rosetta", an integral feature of Apple Newton OS, the operating system of the short-lived Apple Newton

Apple Newton

The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...

 personal digital assistant. Inkwell's inclusion in to Mac OS X led many to believe Apple would be using this technology in a new PDA or other portable tablet computer

Tablet computer

A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...

. However, the only currently available tablet Mac is the Axiotron Modbook

Axiotron Modbook

The Modbook is an after-market modification that converts an Apple MacBook into a slate-style tablet computer. Developed by Los Angeles, California-based Axiotron, Inc., the Modbook was introduced in the 2007 Macworld Conference & Expo. It won a Best in Show award at that same conference. The...

, an aftermarket MacBook

MacBook

The MacBook was a brand of Macintosh notebook computers built by Apple Inc. First introduced in May 2006, it replaced the iBook and 12-inch PowerBook series of notebooks as a part of the Apple–Intel transition. Positioned as the low end of the MacBook family, the Apple MacBook was aimed at the...

 with a replacement screen that allows utilization of Inkwell.

Inkwell, when activated, appears as semi-transparent yellow lined paper, on which the user sees his or her writing appear. When the user stops writing, his or her writing is interpreted by Inkwell and pasted into the current application (wherever the active text cursor is), as if the user had simply typed the words. The user can also force Inkwell to not interpret his or her writing, instead using it to paste a hand-drawn sketch into the active window

Active window

An active window is the currently focused window in the current window manager or explorer. Different window managers indicate the currently-active window in different ways and allow the user to switch between windows in different ways. For example, in Microsoft Windows, if both Notepad and...

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Inkwell was developed by Larry Yaeger

Larry Yaeger

Larry Steven Yaeger is a former Apple Distinguished Scientist and is currently Full Professor of Informatics at Indiana University Bloomington. Outside of academia he is best known for designing the handwriting recognition software used in the Apple Newton and Inkwell. Yaeger's current research...

, Brandyn Webb, and Richard Lyon

Richard Francis Lyon

Richard Francis Lyon , is an American inventor,scientist, and engineer, noted for having invented the optical mouse.He has worked in many aspects of signal processing and was a co-founder of Foveon Inc.,...

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External links

• InkSpatter, a blog which discusses pros and cons of Inkwell