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Samsung to Integrate XT9 Mobile Interface to Drive Mainstream Consumer Adoption of Mobile Content and Services

Posted on: Monday, 13 February 2006, 12:00 CST

New XT9 Debuts at 3GSM World Congress

Tegic, a division of AOL, today announced that Samsung Electronics plans to be the first handset maker to integrate the XT9 Mobile Interface (formerly T9 Mobile Suite), a first of its kind, multi-modal user interface, into new handsets.

The XT9(TM) Mobile Interface, which launched in October 2005, seamlessly integrates popular T9(R) software for the phone keypad, as well as hard and soft QWERTY keyboard, with handwriting recognition capabilities using a stylus.

This pioneering user interface is designed to enable users to easily toggle between messaging modes, as well as numbers, letters, symbols and languages, and also allows for auto-accenting of words, a benefit for users of many European languages, including French, Spanish and Italian.

"Samsung is a long-standing partner for Tegic so we are pleased to work closely to integrate XT9 into a series of new devices," said Bill Schwebel, president, Tegic Communications. "We share a common goal, which is to open up new revenue streams for handset makers and operators as voice revenues decline. Our new multi-modal user interface will help realize this potential."

Today, Tegic also announced new XT9 Mobile Interface features. By making it simpler to type words and phrases, XT9 makes it easier to enjoy popular content and wireless services, driving widespread consumer adoption of mobile web browsing, search and messaging. This new product upgrade adds the following new features:

-- Next Letter Prediction: When entering letters by scrolling through an alphabet (up-and-down or side-to-side), XT9 predicts the user's next letter based on previous letters entered. For example, if a user inputs "l-o-v," then XT9 will present the next letter as "e" for the word "love" rather than have the user scroll through the alphabet from "v" to "e."

-- Regional Error Correction: For users of hard QWERTY keyboards (e.g., chiclet), XT9 helps ensure a better messaging experience by compensating for users tapping incorrect keys on the keyboard. For example, if a users inadvertently types in "m-o-o-b," XT9 will present "moon" since the "b" is just one key away from the "n," and the word "moon" is a more likely choice.

For handset makers, XT9 can help speed time-to-market for new mobile devices. Further, this new user interface makes it easier for consumers to access mobile content and services, enabling users to take advantage of all their phone has to offer. Samsung plans to integrate XT9's full and reduced QWERTY capabilities into new devices to ship later this year.

The XT9 Mobile Interface is currently available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. Additional Latin- and script-based languages are also available upon request. Later this year, Tegic plans to release XT9 2.0, which will include advanced speech recognition capabilities, as well as Chinese handwriting recognition.

The XT9 Mobile Interface is now available for handset makers to integrate into their text-enabled mobile phones, feature-rich smartphones and advanced mobile devices. For users new to T9, visit http://www.textfast.T9.com.

See Tegic at 3GSM in Barcelona. For demos of the latest T9(R) offerings, including T9(R) Text Input, T9(R) Text Output, XT9 Mobile Interface and Chinese T9(R) Phrasal Text Input (PTI) software, visit Tegic at the B Hotel just across Placa Espanya from the 3GSM Congress Hall.

About T9(R) Software

T9, a leading alphabet-based and Chinese, Japanese and Korean character-based messaging software, is the flagship product of Tegic, and is available in more than 51 languages. By incorporating T9 software into mobile communications products, companies are solving the fundamental problem of how to quickly and easily send mobile messages and browse the Web. More than 800 mobile phone models available throughout the world today include T9 software and the technology has been licensed to major consumer electronics and communications equipment manufacturers worldwide. For more on T9, visit http://www.textfast.T9.com.

About Tegic, a Division of AOL Wireless

Tegic is a leading provider of enabling software for mobile data services, including market-leading T9 software. A wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, 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, Bangalore and Sao Paulo. Tegic is on the Web at http://www.tegic.com.

Source: Business Wire

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