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CRiSM Seminar - Dr David MacKay

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Location: MS.03

David MacKay, University of Cambridge

Hands-free Writing

Keyboards are inefficient for two reasons: they do not exploit the predictability of normal language; and they waste the fine analogue capabilities of the user's muscles.  I describe Dasher, a communications system designed using information theory.  A person's gestures are a source of bits, and the sentences they wish to communicate are the sink.  We aim to maximise the number of bits per second conveyed from user into text.

Users can achieve single-finger writing speeds of 35 words per minute and hands-free writing speeds of 25 words per minute.

Dasher is free spftware, and it works in over one hundred languages.

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