The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Easy SMSing in Indian languages

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 02, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Easy SMSing in Indian languages

Chitra V. Ramani

QuillPad technology supports any language that can be written phonetically

— Photo: K. MURALI KUMAR

Path-breaking: Ram Prakash H., Founder-Chief Executive Officer of Tachyon Technologies.

Bangalore: Here is a technology that learns the rules of a language for you and predicts the word as you type on your mobile phone. It has been developed by Tachyon Technologies.

Speaking to The Hindu, Ram Prakash H., Founder-Chief Executive Officer of the company, said that with QuillPad, one can SMS in Indian languages just as easily as in English.

“That is because we have developed an artificial intelligence technology, which learns the rules and language patterns and can transliterate any language without help of any linguistic expert,” he said.

There is a two-fold advantage — since there is no dependence on a linguistic expert, it can be used for any language and one does not have to depend on the dictionary. Mr. Ram Prakash said that this learning was just one-time, after which the trained set of patterns could be deployed by all users of QuillPad technology. The newly developed technology then enables predictive transliteration. “When you are typing a word, the technology will put together the rules and come up with the right word. It is very similar to the way the T9 dictionary on mobile phones supports typing English words,” he added. Another feature that is unique is that the technology is not dependent on one Indian language or its structure. It supports any language that can be written phonetically.

“This gives QuillPad an edge over other technologies. As the artificial intelligence technology can learn the pattern of new languages in just three to four hours, one can add new languages overnight,” he said.

QuillPad allows users to type instinctively and gives out correct translations for the same. “Even while conversing in our native language, we tend to use many English words. The technology has the ability to transliterate English words that are typed with conventional spellings. The unique feature is that it take U.S. English pronunciation and gives us the Indian pronunciation,” he said.

One of the challenges that they faced was bringing the technology on to the mobile phone. “We had developed QuillPad basically so that users could send emails in Indian languages. We wanted to take it a step forward and use it to work with other input interfaces such as mobile keypads. We succeeded and did not have to modify the engine even by a byte!” No wonder, QuillPad was deemed the second best innovation at the bangaloreIT.in.

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