Tegic today announced that Samsung Electronics plans to be the first handset maker to integrate the XT9 Mobile Interface (formerly T9 Mobile Suite), a first of its kind, multi-modal user interface, into new handsets. The XT9 Mobile Interface, which launched in October 2005, seamlessly integrates popular T9 software for the phone keypad, as well as hard and soft QWERTY keyboard, with handwriting recognition capabilities using a stylus.

Today, Tegic also announced new XT9 Mobile Interface features. By making it simpler to type words and phrases, XT9 makes it easier to enjoy popular content and wireless services, driving widespread consumer adoption of mobile web browsing, search and messaging. This new product upgrade adds the following new features:

" Next Letter Prediction: When entering letters by scrolling through an alphabet (up-and-down or side-to-side), XT9 predicts the user's next letter based on previous letters entered. For example, if a user inputs "l-o-v," then XT9 will present the next letter as "e" for the word "love" rather than have the user scroll through the alphabet from "v" to "e."

" Regional Error Correction: For users of hard QWERTY keyboards (e.g., chiclet), XT9 helps ensure a better messaging experience by compensating for users tapping incorrect keys on the keyboard. For example, if a users inadvertently types in "m-o-o-b," XT9 will present "moon" since the "b" is just one key away from the "n," and the word "moon" is a more likely choice.

For handset makers, XT9 can help speed time-to-market for new mobile devices. Further, this new user interface makes it easier for consumers to access mobile content and services, enabling users to take advantage of all their phone has to offer. Samsung plans to integrate XT9's full and reduced QWERTY capabilities into new devices to ship later this year.

The XT9 Mobile Interface is currently available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. Additional Latin- and script-based languages are also available upon request. Later this year, Tegic plans to release XT9 2.0, which will include advanced speech recognition capabilities, as well as Chinese handwriting recognition.

The XT9 Mobile Interface is now available for handset makers to integrate into their text-enabled mobile phones, feature-rich smartphones and advanced mobile devices.