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ABBYY Announces Mobile OCR SDK

May 16, 2006
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ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK is a software development toolkit (SDK) for integrating optical character recognition (OCR) and business card reading functions into mobile platforms and applications.

New Toolkit Enables Simple, Fast Integration of OCR and Business Card Reading Functionality Into Applications for Mobile Phones, PDAs, Pen Scanners, and Other Handheld Devices

ABBYY today announced ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK, a software development toolkit (SDK) for integrating optical character recognition (OCR) and business card reading functions into mobile platforms and applications.

The new SDK offers a truly OS-independent technology which can be integrated into any mobile platform including the Windows Mobile, Symbian, and LINUX operating systems. Designed with the needs of mobile solution providers in mind, ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK combines powerful recognition functions with a small software footprint which utilizes minimal hardware resources. With its small code-size, the Mobile OCR SDK is extremely efficient and can provide instant results, an essential requirement for mobile solutions. Developers can easily embed OCR functionality into any mobile imaging device, including camera phones, digital cameras, PDAs, palmtops, handheld scanners, and other camera-based hardware. OCR embedded into handheld devices allows users to easily capture notes from documents, books, and presentations and quickly transform them into editable and searchable digital information.

Based on Proven Technology Already In Use

Developers, service providers, and hardware manufacturers can have confidence in the functionality provided through ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK because the current product is second- generation technology already in use by leading customers. ABBYY first premiered a small-code- sized version of its OCR toolkit in 1999 when the technology was integrated into the C-Pen, a small handheld pen scanner. OCR implementation in the C-Pen required less than 2 MB of disk space.

“Since 1999, ABBYY has pioneered new ways to make OCR available for a variety of mobile applications,” explained Alexander Rylov, Chief Product Manager for ABBYY. “With the recent advancements in mobile hardware and digital camera technology, the time is right for this type of mobile recognition technology. Digital cameras have become a standard feature in mobile phones and PDAs and users are quickly learning how to take advantage of these functions. Providing compatibility with any platform and with significantly enhanced functionality, this new version will help hardware vendors turn mobile phones and other handhelds into powerful business devices.”

Enabling Business Card Reading Applications on Mobile Devices

One key function in ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK is identifying and extracting contact information from business cards. By building this core technology into their development plans, developers can create business card reading applications for camera phones or other handheld imaging devices. When a user takes a picture of a business card, for example, an application can be designed to read the image and identify key fields such as company, name, phone number, and email address. This application can then be linked to an address/phone book application. As a result, a user can instantly store business card information direct to his mobile phone or phone book in just a few simple steps and without a lot of telephone keypad typing.

Key Features and Benefits

ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK delivers excellent recognition quality and accuracy with high processing speed. It offers development support specifically designed for the mobile application market. Key features include:

High Accuracy and Multilingual Support — Based on award-winning ABBYY FineReader technology, Mobile OCR SDK ensures the best possible recognition quality. It supports 60 languages, including Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

Platform-Independent SDK — Mobile OCR SDK can be easily integrated into any operating system including Windows, Windows Mobile Edition, Symbian OS, Windows CE, ucLinux, LINUX, and some proprietary operating systems for GSM and CDMA phone platforms. In addition to the base software functionality, ABBYY offers special services for this product line including porting the software to other platforms and customization for special tasks.

Small Footprint — With a small code size, Mobile OCR SDK is optimized to run with low memory resources requiring only 1.5 to 5Mb of RAM and from 2 to 20Mb of ROM.

Digital Camera OCR — Mobile OCR SDK includes special algorithms for handling image distortions typically associated with images taken with digital cameras to help ensure excellent recognition quality.

Business Card Processing Support – Mobile OCR SDK offers intelligent text parsing capabilities specialized for reading text from business card images. This allows developers to add functions into mobile devices for capturing and converting contact information from business card images (such as name, phone, mobile phone, e-mail, fax, company name, job title, address, and web-address) directly into an address book, from field to field. The new SDK supports English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish languages for business card recognition.

Additional Applicability: Instant OCR for PC Utilities

With the Mobile OCR SDK, OCR technology can be integrated into various PC-based utilities, which require high operating speed and minimum memory resources. As a result of its small code size and high performance, the SDK can be used for pop-up dictionaries, pop-up utilities for training and explanation purposes, reading applications (such as for people with impaired eyesight), desktop search, and anti-spam filtering utilities where the time for loading, operating and unloading is crucial.

Availability

ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK is available immediately. For detailed product information or to request a trial copy of the SDK, visit https://www.abbyy.com/ or send e-mail to sales@abbyy.com.

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