The Swedish mobile company Neonode, which develops touch screen technologies and designs mobile handsets, has integrated Chinese XT9 text input interface with phrase prediction in its pioneer multimedia touch screen phone, the Neonode N2. The updated model is expected to ship to various markets in Asia in 2008; the new software with Chinese input support has been made available free for download on the company's website.
The 2005 Beijing CCID Data Co. survey found that in the burgeoning Chinese mobile market, the four features of any phone considered essential by Chinese mobile users were: phrasal context prediction; phrasal text input; reordering of phrases in the selection list based on frequency of use; and stroke and phonetic support "Pinyin" for Simplified and Traditional Chinese input. The N2 now offers all of these features.
In addition to the XT9 input support for Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Neonode has also introduced T9 text input for Malaysia and Indonesia, meaning that the N2 is now localised to 20 languages in total. The phone's sweep and tap based touch screen technology is intuitively desgined, enabling the user to alternate between different alphabets and languages with the touch of a finger.
Per Hellberg, Vice President of Sales at Neonode, said "With the new software upgrade, the localization of Traditional and Simplified Chinese and additional language support for Malaysia and Indonesia, we believe we have a really competitive product that opens up new possibilities in Asia. We are very pleased to present this upgrade to our current customers as well as new, potential customers in various Asian markets."
The Chinese XT9 text input is supplied by Nuance. Eric Collins, General Manager for Nuance Communication's T9 Business Unit said, "We are delighted that Neonode is launching its touch screen phone with Chinese XT9 Smart Input. XT9 Smart Input is the first of its kind multi-modal user interface solution for feature-rich smart phones and advanced mobile devices, and has the potential to be the key multi-modal platform for millions of mobile users globally."
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More info: http://www.neonode.com/
