BenQ Selects Hand Writing Recognition Software for Smartphone

ART Advanced Recognition Technologies has said that an upgraded version of its natural handwriting recognition software, smARTwriter, has been chosen by Taiwan's BenQ for their new P30 smart phone, which includes camera and PDA functionalities.

The upgraded smARTwriter provides even greater ease in using handwriting UI with both major European and Chinese. smARTwriter has enabled BenQ to produce its new P30 smartphone in three versions: one device for Western Europe carrying English, French, Italian, German and Spanish; one for mainland China with Simplified Chinese and English; and the third for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore markets in Traditional Chinese and English.

"We are very pleased with the results of our strong cooperation with ART. Choosing an already proven embedded handwriting recognition solution that operates seamlessly with the UIQ operating system gave us real peace of mind," said Harrison Chang, Senior Associated Vice President of BenQ. "At the same time, the improved smARTwriter now provides the P30 with a number of exciting new features - like the easy, one-click movement between all different writing modes and languages - abc, 123, symbols or characters in Chinese - and 'best match' choices for both Chinese versions. We're highly confident that ART's flexible and convenient UI will be welcomed by all our customers."

An embedded software solution, smARTwriter provides fast and accurate text input for new generation keyboard-less devices. With a unique self-training module smARTwriter's intuitively identifies users' own natural handwriting, allowing them to use even idiosyncratic characters and freeing them from the need to adopt awkward, artificial letter-shapes.

A complete word and sentence recognizer with continuous, on-the-fly recognition at natural writing speeds, smARTwriter allows for immediate correction. Its advanced technology enables data input from the whole of an available screen area, no longer limiting users to just a tiny portion of a screen. Providing the most convenient recognition solution currently available, ART's software is now widely deployed in many of the world's leading smartphones and PDAs.

smARTwriter is designed for use with ARM 7 or similar minimal memory and CPU requirements."

Posted to the site on 5th November 2003