Dasher - Open Source software helping skilled users to write at over 30 words a minute by pointing

Source:Dasher Project

Last March I mentioned David MacKay's Sustainable Energy - without the hot air. (Read it before you decide on any domestic or personal energy saving investments.) MacKay is a Professor in the Cambridge University Department of Physics and a leading figure in the artificial intelligence community. He is closely involved in the Inference Group's Dasher, an Open Source "zooming" text entry interface:

"You point where you want to go, and the display zooms in wherever you point. The world into which you are zooming is painted with letters, so that any point you zoom in on corresponds to a piece of text. The more you zoom in, the longer the piece of text you have written. You choose what you write by choosing where to zoom."

The eyetracking version of Dasher allows an experienced user to write text as fast as normal handwriting - 29 words per minute; using a mouse, experienced users can write at 39 words per minute. Here are a three page explanation and some videos; and MacKay will be talking about Dasher (and a newer sister product, Nomon) at an open public meeting in Cambridge on 17 June. If any reader gets to this talk I would happily include a report from the meeting as a Guest Contribution.

Comments

[Emmadw]

I saw it demonstrated on the Royal Institution Xmas lectures & thought that it would be useful for someone using a head switch (I've worked with students who have used them in the past) so interesting to see those videos. (The RI lectures just had a single word, not a whole sentence)