Japanese Handwriting Technology Selected for New Motorola 3G Smartphone

ASIA : Zi Corporation announced at PMN's Mobile User Experience (MEX) event in London that its advanced handwriting recognition solution, Decuma Japanese, is embedded in the newly launched FOMA(TM) M1000 3G smartphone.

Inset shows Decuma character recognition After writing a character, Decuma provides a list of possible candidates for easy selection.

It is ow available through Japan's leading mobile operator NTT DoCoMo, Inc. Co-developed by NTT DoCoMo and Motorola, the FOMA M1000 is the world's first-ever WLAN-integrated W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS dual-mode smartphone, designed to attract today's increasingly mobile consumers who want connectivity on-the-go using one device.(i) The FOMA M1000 is manufactured by Motorola.

With its mixture of script forms, Japanese is one of the most complex writing systems in the world. The innovative Decuma Japanese handwriting recognition solution provides FOMA M1000 smartphone owners with a new and powerful interface capability that will allow them to significantly increase writing speed.

"Zi is delighted that its Decuma Japanese handwriting recognition solution is a feature of the new FOMA M1000 smartphone," commented Milos Djokovic, Zi Corporation's chief operating officer. "Until the introduction of the FOMA M1000, text entry in Japan normally required multiple taps on the phone's keypad - this will be a thing of the past thanks to Decuma Japanese."

"Decuma is already widely known in Japan through its embedded implementation on Sony Clie devices and this success has been expanded into mobile phones through our work with NTT DoCoMo and Motorola," added Djokovic.

Key features of the Decuma Japanese system from Zi Corporation include:

- Support for all characters in Japanese writing: Kanji, Kana, Latin letters, numbers and punctuation

- Recognition of Kanji characters written in non-standard stroke orders or in cursive form

- Very low memory requirements and rapid response time

- Easily ported recognition engine

- Available for Windows Mobile(TM) for PocketPC, WINCE(R), Palm OS(TM), Symbian(TM) and other platforms

The FOMA M1000 smartphone is a highly advanced mobile device that offers a wide range of functionalities. The smartphone is compatible with W-CDMA, GPRS and GSM networks worldwide and with public WLANs. It is bundled with a Microsoft Word(R), Excel(R) and PowerPoint(R) compatible viewer and offers Bluetooth(R) capability for hands-free communication. It provides full access to the Internet through Opera 7 browser and works with POP and IMAP email and open email attachments.(i) The FOMA M1000 utilizes UIQ V2.1 and Symbian OS V7 operating system.

About Zi Corporation

Zi Corporation (www.zicorp.com) is a technology company that delivers intelligent interface solutions to enhance the user experience of wireless and consumer technologies. The company provides device manufacturers and network operators with a full range of intuitive and easy-to-use input solutions, including: eZiText(R) for one-touch predictive text entry; eZiTap(TM) for intelligent multi-tap entry, Decuma for natural handwriting recognition and the new Qix(TM) user application interface to enhance the user experience and drive service usage and adoption. Zi's product portfolio dramatically improves the usability of mobile phones, PDAs, gaming devices and set-top boxes and the applications on them including SMS, MMS, e-mail and Internet browsing. Zi supports its strategic partners and customers from offices in Asia, Europe and North America. A publicly traded company, Zi Corporation is listed on the Nasdaq National Market (ZICA) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ZIC).