Google adds Digital Ink Recognition API for touch and stylus input to ML Kit

A month after announcing changes to ML Kit, its toolset for developers to infuse apps with AI, Google today launched the Digital Ink Recognition API on Android and iOS to allow developers to create apps where stylus and touch act as inputs. As the name implies, the API -- which is powered by the same technology underpinning Google's Gboard software keyboard, Quick Draw, and AutoDraw -- looks at a user's strokes on the screen and recognizes what they're writing or drawing. Google says that with the new Digital Ink Recognition API, developers can enable users to input text and figures with a finger and stylus or transcribe handwritten notes to make them searchable. Classifiers parse written text into a string of characters; other classifiers describe shapes such as drawings, sketches, and emojis by the class to which they belong (e.g., circle, square, happy face, and so on). The Digital Ink Recognition API performs processing in near-real-time and on-device, according to Google, with support for over 300 languages and more than 25 writing systems including all major Latin languages, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Cyrillic.