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Robots build cars, CNC machines make complex metal parts, digital scanning and photography can get images of almost anything onto a computer, and programs can analyze information and do all kinds of stuff. I've heard of a Japanese handheld device that can scan any text and translate it immediately into
speech. No longer any need to read bedtime stories to your child, just give him this smart-pen. Seems like if they can make a pen that reads, they could make a user-assisted computer system that takes handwriting samples and spits out forged signatures, documents, whatever. I figure they could be pretty accurate. But handwriting forgery is an art, and I don't know how big the handwriting forgery industry is these days.
Reading pen.
http://www.venturae...m/wizcom/index.html
This is like the one I remembered. [miggavin, May 13 2006, last modified May 14 2006]
Videoclip of an "autopen" signature machine
http://www.signatur...tm?source=google_ad
[jutta, May 14 2006]
Wikipedia: Autopen
http://en.wikipedia...i/Signature_machine
[jutta, May 14 2006]
[link]
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A signature is a personal scrawl that often looks very different from handwriting. I've never heard of a signature being forged other than by looking at the signature itself and reproducing it. But doing that - perhaps building a model of the arm that wrote something and then making it go faster and more - could be an interesting research project. |
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So, good idea, but I'm unhappy with the amount of handwaving and disconnected "oh, computers can do everything!" You don't have to sell it that much - just having a model that can generate a handwriting font and a matching signature would be fun, say for generating virtual people in a game, or for an "Autopen" that autonomously introduces small variations in the signature. |
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The "Reading pen" that you link to doesn't scan handwriting at all. ("Scan
a word from any printed text", says the marketing copy.) |
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Many years ago, I read about robot signature-makers. That must have been the Autopen. Apparently a lot of imprtant autographs are faked, and detectably so. But that mechanism is only for signatures, apparently. A full-page forgery is another matter, and probably useless. |
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This is a wish for computer magic. As I've said before, I want to see at least half of a new idea of how to make something work. For instance: older drafting plotters move pens, a fancy pen-holder could be made to vary tilt and pressure. That's halfbaked, by my standards. |
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The whole idea doesn't fill much of a need. If there was much use for computer-produced handwriting in the corporate world, this would already have been baked. Independent forgers couldn't afford to develop such a thing, but the CIA may well have a basement full. - |
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Jutta the "handwaving" is just a shorthand logic chain. If this can do this, then by analogy why can't this do this. The reading pen is something that's similar in its innovation and area of use, but mainly just helped to inspire this ides. Bacon, I agree, any real need for this is beyond my imagining. Congrats for having critical standards, but I'm not convinced that "this is a wish for computer magic". This would do what CNC machines do, but with pen on paper. Programmed fine robotic movements. The scanned handwriting samples would provide the 'plans and instructions' for the output. If I were technically inclined, I could speculate on the plausibility of it. I'm not, so I put it on halfbakery. |
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