Virtual keyboard scale for Indian languages

MUMBAI, INDIA: IEEE, the world's largest professional association under a new working group IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-S), will launch IEEE P1908.1 — the virtual keyboard standard for Indian languages on January 25.

Once the standard is developed and adopted, IEEE P1908.1 will make it possible for the first time to display Indian language characters dynamically on smartphones and tablet computers. It is expected to lead to the increased usage of Indian languages.

“The availability of smartphones and tablet computers with touchscreen interfaces at affordable price points are about to revolutionize the use of Indian languages, which will benefit around 17 per cent of world's population,” said Arjuna Rao Chavala, IEEE P1908.1 working group's chairman.

“A standardized input method for Indian languages, coupled with the ability to display the Indian language alphabet using the touchscreen interface will be a great enabler and a game changer,” Chavala added.

This project is an outcome of the study group whose members included representatives from government, research institutions and industry and are highly passionate about Indian language computing. The group has spent over a year in assessing the status of different initiatives and defining the project scope.

The new standard IEEE P1908.1 will address the limitation of previous standards that have been unable to fully accommodate the preferences of languages other than Hindi, which have a high learning curve because of lack of phonetic mapping between English and Indian language characters or lack the dynamic presentation of Indian language characters.

“Once the standard is developed and released, consumers will benefit from being able to operate their computing and communication devices in their native language, without worrying about any learning timing when using different devices,” Chavala explained.

For this new initiative, all the interested parties are invited to join the IEEE P1908.1 working group to contribute and help the cause. For joining, the interested person will need to sign up IEEE P1908.1 Working Group page.