CharacTell Releases SoftWriting™ 3.0 For Highly Accurate Handwriting Recognition Groundbreaking technology achieves around 98% recognition rate for handwritten, non-connected characters Tel-Aviv, Israel - June 24, 2001 - CharacTell, a leader in the field of handwriting recognition, today announced the release of its new, flagship product, SoftWriting™. SoftWriting enables users to convert non-connected handwritten text into a computer file, such as a Word document. SoftWriting is the only product of its kind available today on the market. The system can be used by anyone wishing to transfer handwritten material or notes to a computer text file without having to retype it, saving both time and effort. Arthur Gingrande, well-known ICR consultant at Imerge Consulting, reports that, "as an industry analyst specializing in intelligent character recognition, I've investigated a lot of claims about recognition accuracy of hand print characters in unconstrained environments - and SoftWriting really works! This is the first time I've seen an ICR application designed for ordinary, everyday use that performed so successfully on real world, handwritten documents." Guy Halperin, Director of Marketing at CharacTell stated that, "the launching of SoftWriting demonstrates our commitment to deliver the most accurate handwriting recognition solution to our clients. We believe that thanks to our breakthrough technology, which generally achieves around 98% recognition rate, our users will save considerable time and effort transferring handwritten notes to computer documents. Although the technology is restricted to non-connected handwriting, its ability to use abbreviations, as well as to merge diagrams and sketches into the final computer document, can speed up writing and improve the quality of the final documents. The product is currently available for end users, and will soon be installed in libraries of educational institutions." Nearly everyone learns to use a pen at an early age, and continues to write every day for the rest of their life. Handwriting is a very natural medium for humans. However, the designing a handwriting recognition method with 100% accuracy has always been difficult, because even human beings are not able to recognize every handwritten text without any doubt. The automatic and reliable recognition of handwritten documents requires sophisticated and highly adapted algorithms. This includes a complete chain from image analysis, segmentation, and recognition of single characters to a contextual analysis. SoftWriting recognizes almost any non-connected handwriting. It can be used with any TWAIN-compatible scanner and the translated document can be saved in a text or MS Word file. SoftWriting includes additional unique features, such as the ability to translate hand-drawn sketches and diagrams to the computer document, and the program's ability to 'learn' handwritten abbreviations that it lately translates into the computer text file. SoftWriting is easy and fast to learn, and enables the user to edit the translated text on the fly.