Can a computer copy your handwriting?

Researchers at UCL Computer Science have taught a computer to imitate anyone's handwriting. They have created an algorithm that can take a sample of handwritten text, examine its qualities, and then write any text in the same style.

There are already typefaces in word processing programs that produce text in a fairly uniform handwritten style. But what Research Associate Tom Haines, member of UCL'S Intelligent Systems Research Group, and colleagues have done is create software that they claim reproduces the messy details of any individual writer's hand.

They call their system My Text In Your Handwriting and have tried it out on samples of handwritten text from historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and the creator of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

While Conan Doyle never actually wrote "Elementary, my dear Watson..." the UCL team have now produced that sentence in his handwriting.

BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones has tried it out. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37046477 for the full story.

More about the handwriting project can be found at http://thaines.com/post/handwriting.