For more than a year, Wang Jian and his team at Microsoft Corp.'s research lab here fed a computer a diet of handwritten documents -- scribbled lecture notes, back-of-the-envelope diagrams, shopping lists. The computer grew smarter, until it was finally able to perform a mundane yet crucial task: It could distinguish words from most everything else on the page, then turn the letters into neatly typed text.
With that success, it was time for Wang to fly to Seattle to show his creation to a man who had a decade-long fascination with computers that can be used like writing pads. It was time to give a demonstration to Bill Gates.
|