14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia wants to develop mobile phones which will "communicate" better with their owners by speaking the same language. A large number of dialects are not included in the list of those available on current handsets, but that is about to change.
Nokia is currently looking for a partnership with Hewlett Packard (HP) for making smart phones with Indian language capabilities. The Finnish company's struggles sound only natural, when thinking of the great success that it has had in this country with its products.
Still, there are several cities where the number of English speakers is considerably lower compared to other states. This does not mean that the mobile phone industry is not developing here. On the contrary, India is currently registering high growing rates when it comes to telecom services and products.
The figures could be even higher if the cellular technology became more accessible to everybody. For those who are now having their first experience with mobile phone technology, it is already difficult to adapt, as a foreign language can only make it nearly impossible to handle the challenge.
HP will help Nokia in solving this problem by equipping handsets with a technology that they had developed for themselves. A touch-sensitive screen will display a set of characters and act as the keypad. Through a stylus, or with the hands, the user can then choose from this set of characters as to fully compose a text message or email and even write blogs in Indian languages.
HP has plans on using this technology with computers, although similar applications in this area have proved to be less successful than expected. Still, in the case of mobile phones, things might stand slightly different, as the need for such a technology has been expressed until now by many new mobile phone users in India.