Nectec focus moves to mobile platforms
The National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) is planning to put much of the fruits of its internal research and development into mobile platforms, allowing cell-phone users to take advantage of its applications while on the go.
The centre will also work with partners to spread the technology, which will be available by next year. According to Nectec's adviser to the director, Suranart Tanvejsilp, the centre plans to transfer its software which now runs only on PCs - including its work on optical character recognition (OCR), Prasai and Net Talk - for use by mobile users. The OCR application can convert a scanned document image file into a text file, so users can edit and alter information in the document. Prasai software is designed to help speech-impaired people, particularly children, to communicate. It provides more than 2,000 pictorial symbols, which represent sentences or sayings used in daily life. A click on a particular picture prompts the software to pronounce the word or words out loud. NetTalk is a type of text-to-speech software that allows people to listen to information such as news and weather over the air or across the network through dial-up telephone or Internet access. Suranart said the centre hoped to find partners to join the project. "With mobile devices becoming a part of people's lives, this project aims to offer a chance for cell-phone users to use these applications while on the go," he said. He said the centre would also support local software entrepreneurs to develop new mobile applications for commercial purposes.
Jirapan Boonnoon The Nation
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