Chinese Handwriting recognition extends to Snow Leopard

According to MacRumor, the new Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will feature Chinese handwriting recognition for multi-touch capable machines. Already available on the iPhone, this feature will probably allow existing laptops with multi-touch trackpads to write Chinese like how it is done on the iPhone.

Apple recently acquired Chinese handwriting technology for use in the iPhone, and appears to be incorporating this same technology into Mac OS X. Most interesting, however, is the fact that it is specifically enabled on multi-touch capable machines. We presume this to include Apple’s notebooks which include multi-touch trackpads. While Apple does offer an English handwriting recognizer based on old Newton technologies, it is only available when you have a drawing tablet connected to your Mac. This could open the door to more novel uses for Apple’s multi-touch trackpads or even suggest a more robust full-screen multi-touch screen as has been rumored.

This will be useful especially in the Asian market where Chinese is still predominantly use in certain countries. It will be another feature to look forward to with Snow Leopard.

Read more at MacRumors