The next step in the Nintendo DS technological evolution will be handwriting recognition capability in games.

Nintendo Co. Ltd. has just inked a licensing agreement allowing it to harness this technology, previously most prevalent amonst the PDA and smartphone masses.

Full details in a Nintendo DS National Post article were announced today.

Seasoned gamers are well used to split decision thinking, and now mastering quick cursive script is yet another bid for even more speed.

Ambiguous PDA shoppers may be lulled by the idea of Palm shorthand gaming on the Nintendo DS, thus hijacking a portion of the Palm and Pocket PC gaming market.

There's a great deal of functional convergence taking place in today's handheld technology wars.

My recent WiFi hotspots gaming article mentioned the recent McDonald's and Nintendo joint agreement to provide some wireless gaming action to the former's high-calorie consumers.

The entrance of the video iPod means yet another contender, hijacking a fraction of the undecided who would have probably picked up a Pocket PC for its MPEG-4 capabilites instead.

Emerging hardware acceleration capabilities for Pocket PCs allows such PDA owners to harness power previously restricted to the dedicated gaming Nintendo DS and Sony PSP handheld crowd.

It appears that handheld devices are becoming more uniform in development.

WiFi access, MPEG-4 playback, handwriting recognition ... it may all sound a little too familiar. You can probably think of half a dozen devices performing similar functions.

My iPod upgrade trauma article speaks of the blistering technology evolution unfolding with this device.

With concurrent upgrades taking place amongst various platforms, only time will tell whether or not devices like Nintendo DS will be distinguishable from any other.

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Damian Julien is a Pocket PC gaming authority and long time general gaming hobbyist and reviewer.

He is an IT specialist by trade and has posted numerous articles on Pocket PC emulators, gaming and trends in the industry.