HP Labs India

Business-standard.com
March 16, 2006

HP, a technology solutions provider to consumers and business organisations worldwide, on Wednesday announced a pen-based technology that will allow the Kannada script to be recorded and stored directly in the computer without the use of a conventional keyboard.

The technology, which is also called the gesture-based keyboard (GKB), has been developed by researchers at HP Labs India in Bangalore and holds similar potential for other Indian languages derived from the Devanagari and Tamil scripts, according to HP officials.

Announcing the launch of the GKB here, Ajay Gupta, director, Mobility Solutions, HP Labs India said that unlike other prevailing Indic language entry methods which either used bilingual keyboards or displayed the Indic keyboard layout on the monitor, the HP GKB was a low-cost and rugged solution that solved the phonetic language entry problem by allowing users to input data with a pen.

“In the multi-lingual keyboards available in the market presently, putting matras and half-characters is very very difficult and for ordinary people, these are very complex issues,” said Gupta.

The HP GKB technology was easy to use through its pen-based interface. In addition to the text, GKB, which could also be used as a mouse, allowed the capture of signatures, pictures and visual elements.

Gupta said the simple gesture-based data entry method could make it easier to communicate for those who neither understand English nor know how to type.

The product would be commercially available in the current month and HP was working with a Bangalore-based company which would be commercialising it.

He said the new HP GKB for Kannada would cost around Rs 2000 and would be available as a separate product instead of being bundled with HP systems.

About the gesture-based keyboard for other India languages, Gupta said HP India was working with various partners in different states to develop this. “Very soon, we will be launching GKB for Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati,” he added.

About the commercial viability of the product, Gupta said this would be very useful for state governments in interracting with rural folks and farmers to implement important government policies apart from helping increase the PC literacy rate.

Richard H. (Dick) Lampman, HP’s senior VP, Research and director of HP Labs said HP Labs India was working on a wide range of other new information and communications technologies for India and other rapidly growing markets.

Established in 2002 with an focus on the needs of emerging markets, HP Labs India had a multi-disciplinary character and was a very important units of HP Labs worldwide.

Apart from its headquarters in Palo Alto in the US, HP Labs has facilities in five other locations that include Bristol in the UK, Haifa in Israel, Tokyo and Beijing, besides Bangalore.

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