Submitted by Mike Grenville on Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:43

Loved and loathed in equal measure, the latest version of predictive text software from T9 (T9=text on 9 keys) that is in most mobile phones, will be welcomed by the many people who want to mix languages in the same sentence.

The European launch of version 7.2 of Tegic Communications, T9® Text Input software offers advanced alphabetic text input prediction in multiple languages to help users of text-enabled mobile phones, to write SMS text messages, mobile instant messages and wireless e-mails more quickly.

Specifically, Tegic’s T9 Text Input version 7.2 offers enhanced multi-lingual support, which makes it easier for users to alternate between languages when texting. It is not uncommon for users to switch back and forth between languages when speaking or writing to friends and family. Yet mobile users currently have to manually select or change the language in which they want to text in order to do so. The new multi-lingual enhancement changes this by recognising the language a user is typing in and automatically predicting the word in the language the user is most likely to want.

The software lets users text concurrently in two languages without having to change their phone settings. For example, if a Spanish user types in “buenos dias! How are you today?” T9 software will recognise that the user is switching from Spanish to English in the same conversation and will instantly predict the most probable words, saving users both time and keystrokes.

It also offers predictive text dictionaries for three new languages, including Bengali, Tamil and Urdu, bringing the total number of languages that Tegic supports up to 45.

Eric D. Collins, (pictured) VP Sales, Marketing and Business Development said that "The enhancements in Alpha T9 7.2 are available now to manufacturers and should start to appear in phones by the end of Q2 2005."

However, getting handset manufactures to adopt new versions of the software can be a challenge. Nokia for example is still using version 5.2 although the Series 60 phones have at least gone to version 6 that was released at the end of 2002.

More T9 Devices

A range of other devices such as Game machines, DECT cordless phones and Set-top boxes are also about to include predictive text from T9 so we might as well get start getting used to it.

As a resister to the charms of predictive texting, I started the interview with Eric Collins with T9 turned off on my phone only to mysteriously find it turned on afterwards. To my surprise I found using predictive text easier to use than I remembered but the conversion for me was to be short lived as two days later my Treo with its QUERTY keyboard came back from repair!

www.t9.com