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Press Information
Released 1900 hrs
London time / 1400 US Eastern Time, 21 August 2002
Some frequently asked questions
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Why did you invent Dasher?
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I (David MacKay) was convinced that standard text-entry systems (such as
ten-finger keyboards) are very inefficient - they don't make
use of the predictability of natural language,
and they waste our capabilities of making high-precision
gestures.
I believed that by starting from a principled foundation - namely
information theory - we could make completely new writing systems
that could have hardware much smaller than keyboards, and yet work
nearly as fast,
and that could be integrated with pointing systems such as eyetrackers.
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Who is Dasher aimed at?
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There are several different groups of people who will
find Dasher useful. What they all have in common is that
they want an alternative to the regular ten-finger keyboard.
The largest group of people who can't use full-size keyboards
are palmtop computer users.
Many people who've downloaded the version of
Dasher for pocket PC say they find it
easy to learn and enjoyable to use.
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The group for whom we think Dasher offers the biggest
benefits are people with special needs.
Many people who can't use a ten-finger keyboard, but
who can use a regular mouse, joystick, roller ball, touch screen,
or head-mouse
(and who can see their computer screen),
will find Dasher useful.
Within 10 minutes, such users
can write with Dasher at speeds in the range of 5 to 15 words per
minute. After 60 minutes of practice, writing speeds range from 15
to 25 words per minute. With further practice,
39 words per minute can be reached.
For severely disabled people who cannot use
any of the above pointing systems, but who do have the
use of their eyes, Dasher offers big potential benefits
if it is used with an eyetracker. With practice, writing
speeds of 20-25 words per minute can be achieved.
Another group for whom regular "qwerty" keyboards
are inconvenient are Japanese computer users.
The roman alphabet is unfamiliar to many of them, so writing
in Japanese via a roman keyboard is cumbersome.
Dasher can be used in almost any language, and we
have made a Japanese prototype that allows one to write in
the phonetic Hiragana alphabet.
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What gave you the idea for the inverse-arithmetic-coding interface?
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I (David MacKay) was on a bus to Denver airport with Mike Lewicki on
December 7th 1997.
I was entering something in my PDA (a Psion 3a, which has a small qwerty keyboard),
and Mike commented `gee, that thing is so big!'
And this set us thinking, `how could we make a smaller PDA, given that the
limiting thing is the keyboard?'
We brainstormed about how to make a device with a tiny display mounted
on a pair of glasses and with an input device no bigger than 2cm by 2cm,
which could be attached to the lapel of your jacket. You'd drive it
with your finger.
We were convinced that we could make something much more efficient than
a regular keyboard; the keyboard is inefficient for
two reasons. First, in ordinary writing, every character must be entered by
a distinct finger-gesture; but ordinary text is highly redundant - highly
predictable. The information content of ordinary text
is only one or two bits per character. So one of our aims
was to incorporate a language model into the heart of the text entry
device to exploit this predictability and reduce the load on the user.
Second, human fingers, although they are called `digits',
are analogue devices, capable of fine continuous
gestures. The clunky keyboard throws away our ability to make
high-precision gestures by forcing us to make binary gestures
as we tap the keys. We estimated that a single finger can in principle
generate information at a rate of about 24 bits per second.
If we could find a new way to couple a single finger (producing
information at 24 bits per second) to a really good language model
(which knows how to compress text into one bit per character)
then perhaps we could write at 24 characters per second!
At this point I had the idea of making an inverse-arithmetic-coder.
The user could steer the interface with two-dimensional pointing,
on a 2-d trackpad for example;
and in fact since the user would be looking where they were
going, we didn't even need the trackpad: we could use an eyetracker
to obtain the same steering information.
Thus was born the idea of `Dasher'. (This name was Mike's suggestion.)
Mike reckoned the best way to write a prototype would be in the
Tcl language, and by the time we got to Denver airport, Mike had
taught me enough Tcl that I had knocked together a primitive
zooming interface.
Within another week I had finished the first prototype.
I had an additional motivation for making this prototype of Dasher:
since Dasher is an inverse arithmetic coder, it served as
a handy teaching aid for teaching arithmetic coding in
my Senior course on Information Theory, Pattern Recognition,
and Neural Networks.
I've used it to teach arithmetic coding every year since January 1998.
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How does the text entry method work? Can you describe it so I can picture it?
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It's hard to explain in words. Even with pictures, it's hard to explain!
(An online explanation with pictures can be found here)
It's easiest to explain by a live demonstration.
Anyway, here goes.
Imagine a library containing all possible books,
ordered alphabetically on a single shelf.
(Yes, I mean all possible books. This library
is sometimes called the Library of Babel.)
Books in which the first letter is "a" are
at the left hand side.
Books in which the first letter is "z" are at the right.
The first book in the "a" section
reads "aaaaaaaaaaaa..."; somewhere to its right are
books that start "all good things
must come to an end...";
a tiny bit further to the right are books that
start "all good things must come to an enema...".
When someone writes a piece of text, their choice
of the text string can be viewed as a choice of a book
from this library of all books - namely, the book that contains exactly the
chosen text.
How do they choose that book? Let's imagine they want
to write "all good things..."
First, they walk into the "a" section of the library.
There, they are confronted by books starting "aa", "ab", "ac,.... "az"
Looking more closely at the "al" section, they can find books
starting "ala", "alb",... "alz"
By looking ever more closely at the shelf, the writer
can find the book containing the text he wishes to write.
Thus writing can be described as zooming in on
an alphabetical library, steering as you go.
This is exactly how Dasher works, except for one crucial point:
we alter the SIZE of the shelf space devoted to each
book in proportion to the probability of the
corresponding text.
For example, not very many books start with an "x", so we devote
less space to "x..." books, and more to the
more plausible books, thus making it easier to find
books that contain probable text.
The result is that instead of having the laborious feeling of
selecting one letter at a time - as on a typewritter -
the user has the feeling that whole syllables, whole words,
even whole phrases, are simply leaping towards him.
The user steers by pointing where he wants to go. The display zooms
in towards wherever the user points.
And because the user is typically looking where he wants
to go, it's not essential for the user to point; we can simply
track his eyes and use gaze direction as the pointer.
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How does arithmetic coding work? Can you describe this so I can picture it?
Arithmetic coding is a beautiful text compression method.
It normally takes me a one-hour lecture to explain it.
Imagine a ruler (a straightedge) of length one foot.
Put a mark half-way down it. Label the left half "0" and the right half "1".
Now halve the left half, and label the two quarters "00" and "01".
Similarly, halve the right half, and label the two quarter "10" and "11".
Now we have defined six intervals: "0" and "1"; and "00", "01", "10", and "11".
We can keep subdividing the last four, and get eight intervals such as "000" and "101".
Thus, any little chunk of ruler can be associated with a binary string.
Now, text compression depends on there being redundancy
in the text, and any redundancy can be described by a probabilistic model,
which says what the probability of the first character in the document is,
and what the probability of the second is, given the first, and so forth.
Arithmetic coding assumes that you have got such a model from somewhere.
Let's take the predictions of the probabilistic model: say the predictions
for the probabilities of the first character (a,b,c,....z) are P(a)=0.05;
P(b)=0.02; P(c)=0.03; ... P(e)=0.10; ... P(t)=0.20; ....
We can use these probabilities to slice up the ruler. The left-hand 5%
of the ruler is called "a"; the next 2% is called "b"; and so forth.
Then we can subdivide the ruler's "a" portion into "aa", "ab", "ac",...
in proportion to the probabilities assigned by the probabilistic model
when we ask `assuming the first character is an "a", what's
the probability of the second character?'
In this way, every possible string of characters is associated with a
little fragment of ruler. Then the arithmetic coding method simply
encodes the given string by finding the shortest binary string
associated with the same chunk of ruler.
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How does the model adapt to the writer's language?
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We use a language model called PPM (prediction by partial match).
This language model makes its predictions by counting how often each
letter occurred in similar contexts in the training text.
The model can easily be adapted by adding whatever the user writes
to the training-text database.
It works with almost any language.
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How tiring is the method for the writer's eyes?
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We can't imagine a more user-friendly method for writing with
one's eyes. It's similar to driving a car. When you drive a car,
your eyes spend much of the time looking at the point that you want to drive
towards. So in principle, you could imagine getting rid of the
steering wheel and simply having the car steer towards wherever
your eyes are looking. This hands-free driving system would
not be any harder on the driver's eyes than regular driving.
Similarly, writing with Dasher feels almost effortless. You simply look
on the screen for the first syllable you want to write; it zooms past you,
and the next possible syllables appear; most of the time, the next
one you want is easy to spot, and you spot it, and it zooms by, and
the next options appear. No conscious control of the eyes is needed.
Using simple and cheap eyetrackers, for any application, can be tiring
because the eyetrackers can be confused by a blinking eye or poor
calibration. However, this is a problem of those eyetrackers, not
Dasher.
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How fast is the method compared to other text-entry methods?
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Our paper,
Fast Hands-free Writing by Gaze Direction,
published in Nature on August 22 2002, describes
a comparison of Dasher-driven-by-an-eyetracker
with an on-screen keyboard, with word-completion, driven by an eyetracker.
Dasher users could write at up to 25 words per minute
after an hour of practice.
On-screen keyboard users could write at only 15 words
per minute after the same time. Moreover, the error rate when using the
on-screen keyboard
was about five times that of Dasher.
It's hard to make spelling mistakes with Dasher, because the language model
makes it easy to select correct spellings.
Speed and error-rate are not the only important factors.
Users who tried both systems
reported that they found the on-screen keyboard more
stressful for two reasons. First, one feels uncertain
whether an error has been made in the current word (the word-completion feature
only works if no errors have been made); one can spot an error only
by looking away from the keyboard. Second, at every character, one has to decide
whether to use the word completion or to continue typing; looking
in the word-completion area is a gamble since one cannot be sure
that the required word will be there; finding the right completion requires
a switch to a new mental activity.
In contrast, Dasher users
can see simultaneously the last few characters they have written
and the most probable options for the next few. And
Dasher is a mode-free device:
it makes no distinction between word-completion and ordinary writing.
We have also compared Dasher, driven by a mouse, with
other pointer-based text-entry systems.
All users get faster with practice, and expert writing speeds,
using a mouse, have reached 39 words per minute.
This is not as fast as full, ten-finger typing speeds on a full-size keyboard,
but of course we require neither a bulky keyboard nor the two hands required
to use it. We are using only one finger!
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How long does it take to learn to write English with Dasher?
We can tell you results for the mouse-driven version of Dasher,
and for the eye-tracking version.
-
Using a mouse to steer: Within 10 minutes, novice users of Dasher
can write in English at speeds in the range of 5 to 15 words per
minute. After 60 minutes of practice, writing speeds range from 15
to 25 words per minute. Our most experienced Dasher user, David Ward,
can write at 39 words per minute.
(Some Experimental results online)
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With the eye-tracker, novices can write English at 7 words per minute
after 10 minutes, and at 12-15 words per minute after 60 minutes
practice. Users with more experience of Dasher can write at 20-25
words per minute.
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Can you describe a person writing a couple sentences using your method vs. using the standard on-screen keyboard?
When you use a standard on-screen keyboard,
you have to stare at the first character you want
for a specified dwell time (half a second, say), then
stare at the next character, and so forth. This feels
terribly slow and tiring. Eyes did not evolve
to press buttons! If you reduce the dwell time,
it still feels slow and tiring, though not quite so slow
as before; but the reduced dwell time leads to errors,
because you accidentally `dwell' on incorrect keys.
To speed up your writing, you have the option of
looking at a small number of extra keys at the
top of the keyboard in which word-completions are
offered. Because you can only read what you are looking
at, the only way to find out what word-completions are
on offer is to make the decision to go and look
in this word-completion area. You then have to scan around,
trying not to dwell for too long on any displayed word,
and either select the right word, if you find it, by staring
at it, or give up and revert to typing. If you revert to typing,
you had better remember what letter you just got to! You can
remind yourself what letter you got to only by looking in
another area of the screen.
It's hard to know if you have made errors when typing,
so the value of word-completion is reduced.
It's likely you'll spell a number of words wrong in your sentence.
When you write the same sentence using Dasher, the initial display
shows all characters a-z vertically. You look at
the first character of the sentence, and the display zooms
in on that character, revealing continuations of the sentence
inside the first character; you look at the continuation you want,
and the display zooms in on that. The whole process is continuous.
There are no discrete acts of selection. Just a little to the left
of where one is looking, one can see the characters one has already
chosen queuing up to the left; to the right,
one can see possible continuations, arranged alphabetically.
It feels like you're being offered word-completions,
and at the same time, what you're doing is writing by selecting
letters from the alphabet.
Errors are rare, once you have used Dasher for an hour or so. If you do
make an error, you typically notice right away, because
the model doesn't predict the characters you want to write next.
You can correct errors by backing up -- looking to the left of the
screen instead of the right -- then going forwards again.
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What were the technical challenges you had to address in order to make Dasher work?
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David Ward did the hard work of turning the prototype into
a fast, useable, effective, and beautiful piece of software,
and testing it.
Important issues were
- the trade-off between
using the CPU to refresh the moving image on the
computer screen, and using the CPU to compute additional predictions
of the language model;
- the details of nonlinearities in the rendering
of the screen-image and nonlinearities in Dasher's
dynamics. The original linear version worked OK, but
David managed to enhance the maximum writing speed substantially
by introducing clever nonlinearities.
The limiting factor in the eyetracking version of Dasher
is the resolution of the eye-tracker.
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Was there anything surprising about the results?
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We were delighted with how much faster we can write with
Dasher and an eyetracker than the writing speeds many disabled
computer users report. We know of one user who can write at only
6-9 words per minute. We hope that he'll give Dasher a try, because
it can probably triple his writing speed.
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You say Dasher produced less spelling errors than standard methods. But were those
errors evaluated in terms of seriousness? I mean, a mispelling is easily
detected by a reader. A different word acidentally chosen can change the
whole meaning. Have you evaluated this qualitative aspect?
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That's a very good question. We haven't formally investigated this issue,
but I can give you some raw data, and an informal impression. I think most of
the misspellings were minor, and many of them were caused by uncertainty about
how to spell Jane Austen's prose!
Here is what I wrote in my 9th eyetracking session, in which I made 5 errors,
according to the graph.
[Punctuation and upper case characters were
not required, except that ends of sentences were meant to be marked with '__'.]
thewoodhouses_were_first_in_consequence_there__all_looked_up_to_them__she_had_ma
ny_acquaintance_in_the_place_for_her_father_was_universally_civil_but_not_one_am
ong_them_who_could_be_accepted_in_lieu_of_miss_taylor_for_even_half_a_day__it_wa
s_a_melancholy_change__and_emma_could_not_but_sigh_over_it_and_wish_for_impossib
le_things_till_her_father_awoke_and_made_it_ncessary_to_be_cheerful__his_spirits
_required_support__he_was_a_nervous_man_easily_depressed__fond_of_every_body_tha
t_he_was_used_to_and_hating_to_part_with_them__hating_change_of_every_kind__
And the correct text (with error locations highlighted by *) was
The*Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to
them. She had many acquaintance in the place, for her father was
universally civil, but not one among them who could be accepted in
lieu of Miss Taylor for even half a day. It was a melancholy change;
and Emma could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things,
till her father awoke, and made it n*ecessary to be cheerful. His
spirits required support. He was a nervous man, easily depressed;
fond of every body that he was used to, and hating to part with them;
hating change of every kind.
This example shows two errors that are not severe. I can't spot the other three!
Let's look at another example, trial 12. (4 errors according to the graph.)
the_real_evils_indeed_of_emmas_situation_were_the_power_of_having_rat
her_too_much_her_own_way_and_a_disposition_to_think_a_little_too_well
_of_herself__these_were_the_disadvantages_which_threatened_alloy_to_h
er_many_enjoyments__the_danger_however_was_at_present_so_unperceived_
that_they_did_not_by_any_means_rank_as_misfortunes__sorrow_came_a_gen
tle_sorrow_but_not_at_all_in_the_shape_of_any_disagreeable_consciousn
ess__miss_taylor_married__it_was_miss_taylors_loss_which_first_brough
t_grief__it_was_on_the_wedding_day_of_this_beloved_friend_that_emma_f
irst_sat_in_mour
The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having
rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too
well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy
to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so
unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes *with*
*her*. Sorrow came -- a gentle sorrow -- but not at all in the shape of
any disagreeable consciousness.-- Miss Taylor married. It was Miss
Taylor's loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of
this beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any
continuance.
Again, in this example, I can only find two errors (the two omitted words).
I hope these examples give an impression of how reliable Dasher
is, once one has some practice.
It is hard to make mistakes, because one can always see what one
has just written. If one wrote the wrong word, one
would notice, I think.
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Twenty-five words per minute is not as fast as talking.
Why would anyone use Dasher when they could use speech recognition instead?
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Dasher can be used with any ordinary mouse, with a touch-screen,
or with an eyetracker. The vast majority of Dasher users use it
with a regular mouse or with a touch screen. With a mouse or touch screen,
speeds up to 35 words per minute can be attained with practice. 25 words
per minute is quite typical after an hour of practice.
This is indeed slower than talking speed, so if someone can use
speech recognition technology then maybe they have no need for Dasher.
However, many people like Dasher because
- it gives them a silent way to write - no key-tapping noises even!
- some people can't get speech recognition technology to work.
-
You can use Dasher on any computer, whereas you can only use
speech recognition on a computer that has been trained on
your voice.
-
Speech recognition can't be used in a noisy environment.
-
Speech recognition requires a head-mounted microphone, and requires the
user to learn a lot of new skills -- learning to use a speech recognition
system probably takes several days, whereas you can get going with Dasher
within 5 minutes, and one hour is plenty of practice to achieve 25 words per minute.
- Dasher can be used on a tiny pocket PC, too small to have
a satisfactory speech recognition system.
- An experienced Dasher user makes almost no writing mistakes at all.
Even the most well-trained speech-recognition user with the clearest
speech finds that the system makes errors for about 5% of the
words they write.
-
How much computing power does Dasher require?
-
Dasher can easily be run on any standard PC (running Windows or GNU/Linux). It also runs fine
on the more-powerful palmtop computers such as the pocket PC.
The eyetracking version of Dasher has only been used with standard PCs
thus far, as we haven't come across a palmtop with an eyetracker :-)
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How does your work fit into the body of work on text compression, on text entry, and on human-computer interaction in general, and what is different about it?
-
Dasher is distinctive because it uses
human body's natural continuous
gestures, rather than forcing the human to emit binary gestures (as in typing)
or discrete symbols (as in handwriting or `graffiti').
Eyes are good at navigation and search, and those are the skills
that the eyetracking version of Dasher uses.
Dasher is also distinctive because it integrates a language model
into a writing system in a mode-free manner.
Many writing systems use a language model to offer word-completions,
but accepting a word-completion involves a change in mode.
We think Dasher is especially easy to use because it does
not require these mode-changing decisions.
Dasher is also distinctive because it requires little learning.
If the user is familiar with the alphabetical order used
on the screen, then the only skill to learn
is a simple steering skill analogous to the skill of steering
a car. This skill is transferrable.
If an experienced user wishes to write in Hiragana (the Japanese phonetic
alphabet) instead of English, he can do so instantly.
All we need to do is train the language model on Hiragana,
and load up the right fonts. A user who can write at 25 words per minute
in English will be able to write at 25 words per minute in Japanese
too (assuming he knows both languages!).
Similarly, in English, we can add extra characters to the Dasher alphabet (for example
upper case as well as lower case), and the user is able to write
just as fast as before, even though the number of characters
available has doubled.
Extra characters for European languages can easily be included.
There is no need to make major modifications in order to add
ten accented characters to the alphabet, as there would be
in other approaches using keyboards or graffiti.
Dasher's use of training text is distinctive. Many systems
that employ language models presume that the language consists
of words, and the predictions of the model are embodied in
word-completions. Our language model makes no such
presumption, but it often behaves like a word-completion
system. Moreover,
Dasher often does a good job
of predicting what word comes next.
But Dasher does this without having any concept
of "words". If a user chose to write documents in which
the space characters are omitted, or replaced by "X",
the language model will work just fine; if the user
repeatedly uses entire phrases, then Dasher will behave
like a phrase-completion device.
Dasher can be instantly personalized: simply train the language model
on some example documents similar to the one you intend to write.
Dasher works instantly in any language: simply train the language
model with example documents in the desired language.
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How could this research eventually be applied practically? What other types of uses might the efficient method for text compression eventually lead to?
-
We think that Dasher could be used in at least three
communities, and that the software that David Ward has created
is almost ready for use in at least one of them.
First, the disabled community: Dasher offers a way to enter text into
computers for people who cannot use ten-finger qwerty keyboards.
Some disabled computer users who have generously tested
Dasher report that they find it
far better than any other writing method they have tried.
We expect that Dasher, controlled by a touch-pad,
joystick, mouse, head-mouse, roller-ball, or eyetracker,
will transform the writing speed of many disabled users.
Second, Dasher offers a new keyboardless text-entry method
for computer users in extreme environments.
Until now, head-mounted displays for tiny portable computers have hardly
taken off at all; we think the reason for this is that an appropriate
text-entry method has been lacking. Dasher driven by an eyetracker
or a miniature trackpad offers a new solution to this problem.
We have developed a version of Dasher that runs on a pocket PC.
Maybe some palmtop users will prefer to use Dasher for text entry.
Third, we believe that Dasher might be especially useful to
Japanese computer-users. Many Japanese users are only slightly familiar
with the qwerty alphabet, yet most computers in Japan have
qwerty keyboards; so writing in Japanese on a keyboard is quite slow.
Dasher offers a way to write in Japanese that bypasses the qwerty keyboard.
We are at present testing a Hiragana prototype.
Other more speculative uses for Dasher include:
-
Hybrid voice-dasher system
- Speak into an imperfect speech-recognizer, and watch as
its inferences are displayed as predictions; wherever it is
not sure what you said, use Dasher to steer into the correct
sentence. Much easier than having to correct errors by
saying further speech-commands!
-
Hybrid automatic translation-Dasher system
- Assume we have a poor translation system that translates
badly from French to English. An expert has to zip through
the translation and clean up errors.
This cleaning-up could be done within Dasher, using
the output of the translator to define a language model.
-
Where is this type of input going in the long-term?
I think the long term is already here.
Right now, one of our disabled friends is using Dasher to write documents.
We are ready now for product development, shrink-wrapping, and promotion.
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You said that Dasher can work in most languages.
How do you think it might be used in Japanese?
As a first step towards a full Japanese version of Dasher
handling both Kana and Kanji, David Ward has written a Hiragana version, "Daishoya",
available in Windows version 1.6.3 of Dasher
and GNU/Linux versions 1.6.3-1.6.8.
A demonstration of "Daishoya" being used to write
(hajime mashite) can be reached from
www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/Languages.html.
The conversion of Dasher to Daishoya is simple: we replace the English alphabet
a..z by the Hiragana alphabet,
(a,i,u,e,o,ka,ki,ku,ke,ko...).
We replace the English training text by a Hiragana document. [Unfortunately,
we have not been able to find a large pure-Hiragana document, so
our language model is not as well-trained as we would like.]
Daishoya then allows you to write Hiragana text without a
keyboard.
In the long term, we can imagine two ways of using Daishoya to write Kanji:
- We could add a special
character (like the enter key in Japanese Word) meaning "convert to Kanji",
and use a language model to predict which Kanji are the most probable
in the given context and given the Hiragana sequence just written.
All the probable Kanji would be displayed in boxes of size
proportional to their probability, in accordance with the Dasher method.
The user would zoom into the desired Kanji.
-
We could make a new version of Daishoya in which the symbols in the
alphabet are not Kana, but Kanji elements - single strokes, for example.
The user would build up each Kanji character by adding one element at
a time.
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How many people have used Dasher?
It's hard to keep count.
As of August 2002, we estimate that about 50,000 users have downloaded
Dasher.
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What are the next steps in your research? What are you ultimately aiming for?
The first, and most important aim has already been achieved -- we
aimed to make a system that would allow people to write, without
a keyboard, faster than they could write before. This dream has been
realised.
As of October 2002, the Dasher project is being supported
by the Gatsby charitable foundation.
We are continuing to research the following topics:
-
How to improve the language model. It's already pretty good,
but we can imagine that an extra 20% improvement in speed
by improving the language model's compression by 20%.
-
Automatic calibration of the eyetracker.
At present poor calibration of the eyetracker limits
the performance of Dasher with eyetracker.
We believe we can automatically tune the eyetracker on
the fly, using the information supplied by the user's
steering corrections.
-
Enhancements to the navigation mechanism for the eyetracker.
When errors need to be corrected (which is not often!),
the present version feels clumsy. We are working on
a modified version of the navigation mechanism that
will allow several alternative ways to back up and
correct errors.
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How well the Japanese version of Dasher works for Japanese users.
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Making a version appropriate for people who can only convey
one dimension of pointing rather than two dimensions. (This one-dimensional
mode is included as an option in Dasher version 3.0.1, available March 2003.)
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Including a control mode within Dasher so
that a user who cannot press a button to stop
and start Dasher can nevertheless stop and start
Dasher from within Dasher, and so that they can
carry out other control functions.
This feature is going in Dasher version 3.2.
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When could the research be ready to be applied practically?
When will a consumer version of Dasher be ready?
Product development and promotion is
going to be handled as an Open Source project.
The research version of Dasher, available now, is already useful to some disabled
computer users, and we expect the open source community
to deliver something close to a shrink-wrapped consumer version
within 12 months. The source code will be released under the
GNU public license late this Summer 2002.
We hope that the version released by the end of September 2002
will be found useful by many consumers.
Anyone wishing to support this project, please contact
David MacKay.
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Why make Dasher open source?
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Our work benefits immensely from the use of free software.
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We use the GNU/Linux operating system, provided free by Linus Torvalds and others.
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We use the gcc compiler and emacs editor, provided free by Richard Stallman.
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We use TeX and LaTeX, provided free by Donald Knuth and
Leslie Lamport.
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We use tcl (Ousterhout), X windows (lots of people), bash (Brian Fox),
and hundreds of other pieces of free software.
Having benefitted so much, it is clear to us that free software makes the
world a happier place. We would have to have a good reason not to
make our work free.
Our work at the University is mainly publicly funded. UK Taxpayers
pay for the costs of the University. US taxpayers also
paid for some of the software we use.
The most compelling reason for making software free
is that the world is a more fun place to live in
if everyone shares freely.
Making Dasher `free' software does not prevent businesses from
selling it, as for example Red Hat sells GNU/Linux.
If businesses do profit from Dasher, we would encourage
them to make an appropriate donation to support our continuing
work. The Dasher project was supported by the
generosity of IBM Zurich research labs, who gave
David MacKay a partnership award in recognition of
his earlier freely-shared work on error-correcting codes.
We plan to distribute Dasher under the GNU public license (GPL)
initially.
[A later version of Dasher may be distributed under the LGPL if there is demand.] These licenses allow anyone to use the source
code, and ensure that modified versions of the source code
remain equally free to everyone.
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Let me get this straight. Dasher seems like a really good idea and one
that has the potential to be enormously popular (esp. in Japanese market)
yet you are making it open source (for reasons you explain above).
Doesn't this mean that palm or sony or someone could make a killing from
your idea?
Yes, it's conceivable that a company will incorporate
Dasher into their product and it will boost their sales. If so,
good for them, and I hope they might give something back in return
to the Free Software Community - we'd like support for a software
development manager for Dasher in my group, for example.
There's three reasons why I think software patents are a bad idea:
First, patents inhibit open discussion - it's no fun doing science
in a secretive environment, and communication is essential for
progress; it's unlikely I could recruit PhD students to work on ideas
like Dasher if I forced them to keep my ideas secret; Dasher would
never have got off the ground.
Second, software patents prevent the best software solutions from
being used - a good example is the widely used "gif" format for images:
compuserve and Unisys are apparently enforcing a patent on the compression
algorithm that used to be used to make gif images nice and small.
So everyone is essentially having to stop using what used to be a nice
simple standard.
Third, I think it is pretty rare that the deserving inventor actually
gets anything financially from a software patent. You can't win.
The people who benefit
from patents are (a) patent lawyers; and (b) big corporations, which
use patents as threatened weapons to force other companies to do deals.
If I had a patent and a big corporation violated it, what could I do?
They have more money to pour into legal battles than I do. And they would
no doubt counter-sue, alleging that I was infringing a stack of their
patents. Even in the physical world, patents seem pretty useless. Look
at Mr Dyson with his bagless vacuum cleaners. Didn't Hoover infringe
his patent anyway, and didn't it take him ten years of misery in
court to get this recognised?
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Who funded the research?
The blue-skies research of the Inference group is supported
by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation
and by a partnership award from IBM Zurich Research Laboratory.
The Dasher project has (thus far) been run on a shoe-string without
applying for any other funding.
Support for further development of Dasher would be welcome!
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What is your job title, and how should you be referred to?
David MacKay is Reader* in Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics
at the University of Cambridge.
He is also
cofounder of the information technology company,
Transversal.
[(*) A `Reader' would be a Professor on the U.S. academic job scale.]
David Ward, who did most of the hard work of converting the
Dasher idea from dream to reality, was a PhD student in the Physics
department. He now has his PhD and works for a software company in Cambridge.
We are happy to be referred to as
David Ward and David MacKay,
or
Dr. David Ward and Dr. David MacKay.
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Is there anything else you'd like to say?
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Executable copies of the Dasher software can be downloaded
for free from the Dasher project website,
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/.
There are tips for new users on the website too.
Don't give up if it takes you a minute or two to get started - within
ten minutes, you'll be dashing along.
Please try it out!
Donations to support our research are always welcome.
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The Dasher project is supported by the Gatsby Foundation and by the European Commission in the context of the AEGIS project - open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards) | |
Site last modified Sat Mar 19 12:11:40 UTC 2016
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