The GSM Association (GSMA), the global trade association for the mobile industry, announced the winners of the Americas leg of the 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition on Jun 4. The top 15 innovators selected from a global portfolio of companies worldwide in 5 different categories competed at the Mobile Innovation Marketplace – Americas that’s taken place in Atlanta, Georgia, Jun 3-4.

CooTek is the winner in the Most Innovative Wireless Device-centric Technology category, and becomes one of the top 5 semi-finalists. We presented the TouchPal and its innovative T+ technology to a judging panel, and answered all the questions. The TouchPal and T+ technology finally convinced the judges with its innovation and impact to wireless devices.

Quotes from the judges

"I would like to congratulate all the participants who have progressed to this level," said Jeff Ezell, VP Long Term Service Planning and Business Development, AT&T. "The competition was fierce between the contestants and there were some fantastic presentations. I would especially like to congratulate modu and Ubidyne for winning this Americas regional leg of the 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition and wish them great success in Barcelona."

"Orange always seeks innovation and new ideas that help us offer our customers new options. At the Mobile Innovation Marketplace – Americas, we've seen some top-notch technology," said Steve Glagow, VP Partner Program, Orange. "The GSMA has again pulled together a winning group of contestants making the choice difficult for the judges. However, two technologies stood out above the rest and warrant special recognition and progression to Mobile World Congress next year. Congratulations modu and Ubidyne."

"Choosing amongst so many innovative proposals was a very difficult task," said Marcos Battisti, Mobile Sector Director, Intel Capital. "The different winners are companies that are truly making an impact in the overall telecommunications space. The industry is going through tremendous change and companies like the ones competing at the Mobile Innovation Marketplace - Americas are providing solutions that will address these challenges."

"I was impressed with the level of participation and commitment each of the innovators displayed and wish to thank them all for their participation in the Mobile Innovation Marketplace Americas," said Peter Barry, Head of Venture Capital and Start-ups, Vodafone Group. "It was a difficult decision for us to pick the Semi-Finalists and I was thrilled to be a part of the process. I would like to wish modu and Ubidyne my sincere congratulations and best of luck at the Mobile World Congress next year."

"The quality of the entries has been outstanding across all five categories and I believe this competition will lead to some significant opportunities for operators to take these innovative mobile services to market," said Steve Zimba, Managing Director, Global Telecoms Business, Communications Sector, Microsoft.

Other judges on the panel included Frederic Schepens, EVP, Strategic Business Development, Belgacom; Paolo Paganucci, VP Scouting & Benchmarking, TIM; Dixon Doll, Cofounder & General Partner, DCM; Dr. Cheol Kim, Director, SK Telecom and Jeff Belk, Principal, ICT168 Capitol, LLC.

About the GSMA:

The GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade association representing more than 750 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries and territories of the world. The Association's members represent more than 3 billion GSM and 3GSM connections - over 86% of the world's mobile phone connections. In addition, more than 200 manufacturers and suppliers support the Association's initiatives as key partners.

The primary goals of the GSMA are to ensure mobile phones and wireless services work globally and are easily accessible, enhancing their value to individual customers and national economies, while creating new business opportunities for operators and their suppliers.

Press at GSMA: http://www.gsmworld.com/news/press_2008/press08_38.shtml

Here's the new update for the following fixes:

1. [Bug fix] Couldn't bring up suggested names in SMS To line. (It works for precise mode; but for prediction mode, it may not work on some device. Please try to press an additional SPACE and then BACKSPACE to workaround the issue.)
2. [Bug fix] Make "Yes/No" option larger when prompt to save the new word to dictionary

All the bits are updated (for both Professional and Standard). So if you downloaded after the date of this post, you should have got the latest bits.

To upgrade from your previous version:
1. Go to Start -> Settings -> Input -> TouchPal Options -> Make sure "Set as default SIP" is de-selected.
2. Soft reset your device
3. Download the CAB file from website and copy to your device. Run it from your device to start installation.
4. Soft reset your device after reinstall.

If you have any questions or issues about the upgrade, please send your question to feedback@cootek.com. Thanks!

Well, here it is. We got a lot of feedback from French-speaking Canadian users that they use QWERTY layout rather than AZERTY. So now you can use the QWERTY layout for French language.

If you have already installed TouchPal Professional, please just go here and download the French (QWERTY) language pack, and then install on your device. You will need a restart after installation.

For the Standard users, you may select "French (QWERTY)" from the dropdown list in the download page.

Special thanks to Eric Cardinal who volunteered to help with the French QWERTY testing, and all those who provided help and support!

Our "early adoption" special offer ends on Feb 1. But we have received so many requests to extend the promotion period recently. We have been struggling in pricing, and finally we decide to continue to benefit our users by offering a decent discount, to thank your support and feedback.

From now on, you can get TouchPal Professional v2.0 at 12.98USD with an extra free license to share with your friend. That means you only pay 6.5USD for each license.

Well, it's a little bit higher than the original special offer. But the average cost of 6.5 dollar is still much cheaper than other shareware, isn't it?

Of course, you can always enjoy the TouchPal Standard which is already powerful for many common tasks, for FREE. If you would like to enjoy more, or you want to support us for the future development, please consider Professional.

Again, sincere thanks to those early adopters who supported us both in finance and by feedback and suggestions!

We have updated the TouchPal V2 (both Standard and Professional) for the following bug fixes.

1.[Bug fix] fix SPACE problem in precise input mode other than "abc" view
2.[Bug fix] fix keyboard icon
3.[Bug fix] fix www.*.com key problem
4.[Bug fix] adjust mistyping correction to make it more balanced (eg. you will be able to see "aid" if you enable BOTH option) (Professional Only)

We understand that it might be a little bit inconvenient for you to upgrade quite often, but we just want to react quickly on customer feedback. After this upgrade, we will hopefully stablize the bits for a while, and will accumulate the fixes until the next update in one or more weeks.

Upgrade steps:
1> Download the new release from the download page.
2> Go to Start -> Settings -> Personal -> Input.
3> Find TouchPal in the list and click "Options...".
4> Deselect "Set as default input method" and click ok.
5> Soft reset.
6> Install the new release.
7> Soft reset again.

Happy New Year, our dear early adopters!

In the past few days, we have received overhelming response for V2. Many people just purchased our product even without trial. We know it's your support, and we are really touched by YOU, our early adopters!

First of all, let's clarify why we need to charge for Professional. Unlike some other software providers, we HATE COPYING. Instead, our dream is to INNOVATE and BREAK THE RULES. A lot of ideas in TouchPal are fresh, and we are filing patents to protect them from being copied. Patents are expensive (10K USD for just one US patent, and international patents are 5-10 times), and we also need to be funded for further development. This is why we have to charge for it. However, we still value the spirit of freedom, and that's why we keep Standard edition, which is already better than some other charged keyboards, free. Please remember: "We are NOT innovating to make money, but are making money to innovate!"

That being said, we really think we should really appreciate our early adopters who gave us a lot of feedback and help us improve. And we decide to announce this news at the beginning of 2008 to be a big surprise for all of you!

Gift 1: Discount to 10.98 USD for TouchPal Pro on CooTek.com (~45% off)

Gift 2: "Share with Your Pal"!

That means, you can purchase TouchPal Pro for a discounted price at only 10.98USD, AND, you can get an additional FREE license for your friend! (or, Buy One Get One Free.) The free license your pal gets will be added to our registered user database and receive full support. (If you and friend are ready, click here to get your free license now)

By doing so, we'd like you to help us introduce TouchPal to more people around. However, how you make use of this free license is totally up to you. Sending it as a new year gift to your beloved friends is definitely a good idea; but you could also split the cost with someone who also wants to buy TouchPal Pro - now the actual cost is 5.49USD. A really good deal, isn't it?

But keep in mind that both "new year's gifts" are effective before Feb 1, 2008! For the "Share with Your Pal" program, as long as your purchase is earlier than Feb 1, you could retrieve your free license no later than Mar 31, 2008. This gives you two months to find a pal and help him install TouchPal. Reasonable enough? :)

For those who already paid 19.99USD, we will refund 9.01 USD to your paypal account within one week, and you will be able to attend the "Share with Your Pal" program as well.

Again, we would like you to know that we appreciate your feedback and your support a LOT!

Thank you and wish you all a happy new year!

Yours,
CooTek team
(for any further questions or inqueries on this promotion program, you may post it on our forum or comment on this blog thread.)

It would be useful to help those who upgraded from V1 to understand better about what's new in TouchPal V2.

The biggest change is that we refactored all the codes in V1 and made a whole new architecture for V2. Although this is invisible for end users, it is really a huge effort of improvement for TouchPal.
1. Completely changed the dictionary structure, so that it can handle 100,000+ words easily without much performance/size impact.
2. Completely updated the UI infrastructure so that it could be more flexible for multi-languages and customized UI.
3. Optimize the size and resource consumption, making it takes almost half of the resource of V1.

With this new powerful infrastructure , it enables the following major features (in both Standard and Professional):
- Multi-language support (including layout, alphabet, and dictionaries)
- Display word candidate in document while typing (you can enable it in Options menu but it may impact performance on some device)
- Numbers inside ABC tab.
- Landscape mode
- Smaller size and resource

The Professional edition supports some additional features:
- Mistyping correction
- Dynamic language switching
- Adjustable keyboard size (enlarge/reduce)
- More customizations ("My sentences", "My commands", Emotion icons)

By taking feedback from V1, both editions fix most bugs in V1 with some minor features:
- Fix the bug in Notes
- Change the way to save new words in dictionary
- Support "tab" on SPACE button
- Visualize the mode switching on BACKSPACE and SPACE button (precise input mode/auto add space)
- Save config after reboot

For those who upgrade from V1 to V2, please note that your custom words may not work by default. You need to do a little tweak:
1. Use Explorer to navigate to \program files\TouchPal
2. Rename engdict_usr.txt to eng_user_dic.txt
3. Move this file to [location]\program files\TouchPal\Surfaces
4. Soft reset

We are working on some dictionary tools and hopefully this could be automated in the future.                                                                       

We've made the update on TouchPal V2 (both Standard and Professional) and have following features/fixes (release 2.01):

1. [Feature] Support Italian Language
2. [Bug fix] SPACE button doesn't work on some devices.
3. [Bug fix] Auto captalize "I" for English version.
4. [Bug fix] "Y" issue in German version.

This update applies to all sub-versions (Standard/Professional, VGA/QVGA, all languages). Please go to the download page for the updated bits.

For those who have already installed the V2, please download the new release and follow the steps to upgrade:

Hello everyone! My name is Karl, the architect of TouchPal and T+ solution. This is acutally the first time I write blog. Sorry if I didn't follow any general rule. I will do better, just like TouchPal and T+~ Today, my topic is: why T+ is designed as it is... 

Why T+ can be a super fast input solution?

- Innovative design to combine precise and predictive input
T+ leverages new technology innovated by CooTek, which combines precise and predictive input. It makes precise and predictive input possible without any mode switching.

- Rely on word prediction to reduce typing actions
We believe the most efficient way to improve input speed is to reduce the actions you while typing. Word prediction works perfectly in this area which dramatically reduces the times of pressing.

- Thumb-friendly button design to avoid mistyping
We believe helping user to avoid mistyping should be higher priority thing to do instead of helping to correct mistakes, no matter how smart the correction algorithm could be. Thumb-friendly composited button design dramatically reduces the possibility of mistyping. It makes users more confident while typing on soft keyboard.

- Automatically correct mistyping
We also recognize the fact that mistyping is inevitable even on such thumb-friendly button design. Mistyping correction in TouchPal v2 helps a lot in such case to.

Why we choose composited button layout instead of separated?

- Thumb-friendly on small-size touch screen
Each button can be big enough on small touch screen for users to press or slide by thumb, which will reduce mistyping.

- More contents integrated, less switching needed
With composited button design, more contents could be put onto keyboard, like punctuations, accent letters, special letters and digitals. Users can access them simply by sliding on buttons, without switching to another view. It makes input experience much more consistent and smooth.

Why we believe precisely input on composited button by finger movement is better?

- You know exactly what you need to do!
We evaluated the solution of  "support precise input by allowing users to move finger between buttons nearby before releasing". We believe our solution is easier, faster and advanced. The problem is, with that solution, users need to experience the following steps: press down -> see if on right button -> if not, move fingers to correct on -> release. The fact that users need to see if on right button is indeed a penalty, which prevents users typing fast. With T+, you know exactly what you need to do BEFORE action. If you want "E", slide left on E/R button. Such pre-knowledge (along with thumb-friendly buttons) dramatically increases input speed.

- Sliding is much easier than "press -> move to find correct one -> release"
Sliding is actually a very easy action because it just indicates direction.