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Tegic Launches T9 Mobile Suite to Bring Mobile Browsing, Messaging and Search to the Mainstream

Posted on: Monday, 17 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

Makes Access to Advanced Mobile Applications Achievable

Tegic Communications (http://www.tegic.com), a leading provider of predictive text input software and a subsidiary of America Online, Inc., today launched the T9 Mobile Suite 1.0, the first of its kind, multi-modal user interface solution for text-enabled cell phones, feature-rich smartphones and advanced mobile devices.

The first generation of this innovative and easy-to-use mobile communications interface seamlessly integrates various text entry options, including traditional phone keypad, as well as hard and soft QWERTY keyboard, and handwriting recognition capabilities.

This pioneering user interface is designed to enable users to easily switch between input modes, as well as alternate between numbers, letters, symbols and languages, making it faster and easier to input text. By making seemingly complex wireless features uncomplicated, the T9 Mobile Suite has the potential to drive worldwide demand for and usage of mobile communications services.

"The T9 Mobile Suite makes advanced cell phone applications, such as Web browsing, messaging and search, not only accessible for consumers, but achievable," said Bill Schwebel, president, Tegic Communications. "This flexible and easy-to-use mobile interface simplifies the user experience, empowering mobile users to enjoy applications that once seemed intimidating and difficult to navigate."

For handset makers, a unified mobile user interface makes sense, as it can help minimize development costs and speed time-to-market for new cell phones and mobile devices. Further, the T9 Mobile Suite is flexible to OEM requirements, whether all or only a few of the supported input methods are needed. In the next generation, this new UI is expected to foster enhanced discoverability of mobile applications and services, making it even faster and easier for wireless device users to take advantage of all their phone has to offer.

Features of Tegic's T9 Mobile Suite Version 1.0:

Many predictive text input and linguistic features available to users of T9 Text Input software, the flagship product of Tegic Communications (http://www.tegic.com), are available in the new T9 Mobile Suite including:

-- Enhanced Word Completion: User-added words, such as abbreviations, chat phrases, email addresses and URLs, are automatically completed. Further, T9 Mobile Suite software quickly learns which words users prefer and prioritizes completion of words and phrases the user types most often.

-- Next Word Prediction: Beyond predicting and completing words, the T9 Mobile Suite predicts entire phrases based on the phrases a user types most often. Phrases such as "Call me" can be entered with just a few keystrokes, helping users to type less while actually sending more messages.

-- Smart Punctuation: T9 Mobile Suite software recognizes when a user wants to type a contraction such as "I'll" or a URL such as www.t9.com so that the user doesn't need to open a new window to select the symbol.

In addition to the features available through T9 Text Input software, the T9 Mobile Suite also offers users the following:

-- Language Support: The first generation of Tegic's new multi-modal user interface is available in five languages, including English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.

-- Key-Based Text Entry Methods: The T9 Mobile Suite supports typing on a standard phone keypad, as well as input using a soft QWERTY keyboard, such as a touchscreen, or a hard QWERTY keyboard, like a chiclet keyboard.

-- Handwriting Recognition: By incorporating handwriting recognition technology into this new mobile interface, users are able to write as they would on paper without needing to learn special alphabetic characters.

In early-2006, Tegic plans to release version 2.0 of the T9 Mobile Suite, which will include advanced speech recognition capabilities.

About T9(R) Text Input Software

T9 Text Input, a leading alphabet-based and Chinese, Japanese and Korean character-based text input software, is the flagship product of Tegic Communications, and is available in more than 49 languages. By incorporating T9 Text Input into mobile communications products, companies are solving the fundamental problem of how to quickly and easily type and send SMS text messages. More than 800 cell phone models available throughout the world today include T9 Text Input and the technology has been licensed to major consumer electronics and communications equipment manufacturers worldwide. For more information about T9 Text Input software, visit http://www.t9.com or AOL Keyword: T9 Text Input.

About Tegic Communications

Tegic Communications is a leading provider of enabling software for mobile data services, including T9 Text Input, a market leader in predictive text input. A wholly owned subsidiary of America Online, Inc., Tegic was founded in 1995 to develop and market communication technologies for the telecommunications and computing industries. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington (U.S.A.) and has offices in London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Beijing and Bangalore. Tegic is on the Web at http://www.tegic.com.

Source: Business Wire

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