The handwriting recognition software in Microsoft’s new Table PCs matches your letters with preloaded samples in the database on the machine. Bill Gates thinks that the database should be augmented to learn from the user’s handwriting. But others at the company want it to remain closed, with periodic updates that the company itself controls. They’re not sure if the recognition will be better or worse if the software tried to understand individual handwriting quirks. Also, and perhaps more importantly to Microsoft, if they don’t control a central store of samples, they won’t learn which additions improve overall accuracy. Meanwhile, IBM is pushing for a digitized handwriting standard (InkXML) so that companies can collaborate and produce better results. I am happy having the handwritten ink stay as it is for me to peruse later, but I would definitely want searching capabilities for it so I’d need recognition. But perhaps it wouldn’t have to be completely accurate if it was exhaustive enough to include the correct results in its various guesses for what my scribbles may mean.