Zi Corporation has announced a licensing agreement with Nintendo that will allow developers to make use of handwriting recognition.
PDAs have been offering handwriting recognition for some time and with the DS's touch screen it seemed inevitable that the console would eventually gain handwriting recognition technology. An agreement between Zi Corporation and Nintendo means that DS developers will be able to utilise Zi Decuma handwriting recognition technology when creating software for the handheld.
"With Decuma, Nintendo DS users will experience natural handwriting recognition previously only available to PDA and smartphone users," said Milos Djokovic, chief technical officer and chief operating officer, Zi Corporation.
Thinking about how this technology may be used in games is a difficult one. Perhaps SEGA might be able to make Writing of the Dead and utilise handwriting in a similar way to how they used typing in Typing of the Dead. Handwriting recognition could also be used in RPGs, where you must remember passwords and messages and rather than selecting them using on screen menus, you will have to write them on the screen.
We'll let you know if any games are announced that use the technology.
