Pune, November 28, 2003

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune has developed an innovative solution to enable handsets with Indian languages protected under the patent law. The languages available under this solution include Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil, Oriya and Urdu.

The development makes it possible for individuals to now send Short Messaging Service (SMS) and eMail in Indian languages through mobile handsets. The solution incorporates ease of use and is comparatively faster and more efficient than the English input mode, in vogue today. The solution also configures the user interface and the menus to the desired Indian language and comes packed with an Indian language SMS editor.

The versatility of the solution lies in the inputting of Indian languages through the limited keys available on the mobile handset. Based on the phonetic structure of Indian languages, the solution assigns various vargas, matras to each key, guiding the user to the next key, thus eliminating the need to memorize the exact location of characters on the keypad. The key layout of characters is maintained for all the Indian languages to allow for a smoother transition from one Indian language to another.

The solution is available in both predictive and non-predictive forms. The predictive solution is based on language rules and dictionaries consisting of frequently used words. It provides a facility to the user for updating the dictionary and automatically sets the priority of the frequently used words by the user. The solution is also equipped with fast searching algorithms for a high prediction.

The ISCII standard has been incorporated in the solution for storing data, owing to its compactness, and also because it occupies half the space as compared to the Unicode standard. However, when it comes to communicating to the outside world, it adheres to the international standards such as UTF-8, Unicode and so on. The total solution inclusive of fonts for all the 10 Indian languages requires little more than 250 KB of memory. This facilitates mobile handset manufacturers to pack in more features and functions in their handsets along with Indian language support.

Electronics giants like Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson & others, have tied up with C-DAC, GIST for this revolutionary technology to cater to their various requirements. Samsung's CDMA based and Indian languages enabled mobile handsets with GIST technology is already available in the market. Other companies are also poised to follow suit in launching their own models of Indian languages enabled mobile handsets in the coming days using the GIST technology.

The patent for the GIST technology has been filed by Shri. Mahesh Kulkarni, Group Coordinator, C-DAC GIST and Shri. Sanjay Belgamwar, also of C-DAC GIST.

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