Vision Objects acclaimed by industry experts for the best handwriting recognition

Nantes (France)— Vision Objects, provider of the industry standard in handwriting recognition and text input methods for pen-based user interfaces has been awarded the first prize in the IWFHR 2006 handwritten character recognition competition.

The International Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (IWFHR) a scientific conference that brings together leading researchers and engineers from all over the world from the fields of on-line and off-line handwriting recognition, has this year hosted a competition for the most accurate character recognition software.

The competition organized by Hewlett Packard Labs India and The University of Essex, UK received 18 entries from University and Industry research labs many of them from well known handwriting recognition companies and research groups.

Tamil was chosen as the competition subject as it is one of Asia’s most spoken languages. It was also the first experience of Tamil recognition for most of the participants, including Vision Objects! Each participant had a limited amount of time to train its recognizer on Tamil handwriting samples. The comparison was then performed on a different set of Tamil characters again provided by the organizers.

Vision Objects won the competition with a 93.53% recognition score. Handwriting recognition experts considered it as an excellent result, given that the Tamil alphabet has many characters of very similar appearance, which makes it a tough recognition problem. The recognizers from the other participants came in with a significantly lower recognition score, highlighting the unique quality of Vision Objects’ MyScript® handwriting recognition products.

Vision Objects has developed a unique approach to standardize the development of high quality recognition for languages and for all writing styles from single letters to natural free text. Vision Objects currently supports more than 70 different languages providing the largest range of languages recognized on the market.

“It is an honor to receive this award from leading experts in the field of handwriting recognition,” said Stefan Knerr, founder and CEO of Vision Objects. “It rewards our past and ongoing investments for providing our partners with the most accurate handwriting recognition technology in the market, and underlines our commitment to supporting the largest possible spectrum of languages worldwide”.

About Vision Objects
Vision Objects provides the industry standard in Handwriting Recognition Technology and Text Input Methods for pen-based user interfaces. Vision Objects’ ground-breaking MyScript Technology reliably recognizes and converts handwriting into smart, valuable and searchable digital information. MyScript is available in a wide range of languages addressing markets in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. MyScript is integrated into many existing systems for high level form processing, personal information management, messaging and edutainment applications. Vision Objects’ mission is to develop and market accurate and high performance Handwriting Recognition & Understanding software for any platform using handwritten data entry through pen-based user interfaces such as Digital Pens, PDAs, Tablet PCs and Smartphones.

Press contact Vision Objects
David Bouchon
David.bouchon@visionobjects.com
Phone: + 33 2 28 01 49 50
For more information, visit www.visionobjects.com

About IWFHR
The IWFHR series of workshops brings together leading researchers and engineers from the fields of on-line and off-line handwriting recognition. This is an international forum for identifying, encouraging and exchanging new ideas on different topics of handwriting recognition as well as for promoting novel applications in an attempt to extend the frontiers of this fascinating field of research. The 10th International Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (IWFHR) was held in La Baule, France on October 23-26, 2006.
For more information, visit www.irisa.fr/manifestations/2006/IWFHR/
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