Access joins Open Handset Alliance to support Android in Japan

ACCESS has announced that the company is strengthening its support for the Android platform. As part of this initiative, ACCESS has joined the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a consortium designed to promote open standards for mobile devices for the Android platform. The company also reinforced its commitment to bring its world-leading software and technologies to the Android platform with the announcement that its legacy Graffiti handwriting recognition engine is available immediately free of charge to Android users via Android Market.

Graffiti for Android gives Android device users an alternative input method for entering data on a touch screen. With Graffiti, users can input letters, numbers and characters quickly and easily by just sliding their fingers on the touch screen. Graffiti was originally developed as a character input method for the Palm OS in the 1990s and has enjoyed popularity with users all over the world. ACCESS also plans to release a Japanese version of Graffiti for Android this summer.

Graffiti for Android joins ACCESS’ existing range of software and services already announced for the Android platform. ACCESS recently enhanced several of its acclaimed NetFront series technologies to support the Android platform and is providing these to operators and handset manufacturers worldwide. In June 2010, ACCESS announced NetFront Magazine Viewer for Android and launched eMagazine sales and services on Android Market for Android users in Japan.

Continuing its drive to provide solutions for Android devices, ACCESS also plans to launch a package of modules that comply with Japanese standards such as One-seg, a terrestrial broadcasting standard for digital TV, and communications protocol standards developed by the Infrared Data Association (IrDA). These modules will be provided as APIs to allow Android application developers to easily develop applications for the Japanese market and will be available free of charge as an option for the Android SDK. Additionally, ACCESS will consider making other data entry, character input and advanced handwriting recognition technologies in its patent portfolio available for the Android platform.

"ACCESS is a pioneer of mobile software in Japan," said Andy Rubin, vice president of mobile platforms for Google. "And Japan is seeing a dramatic rise in Mobile Internet adoption of smartphones. I'm confident ACCESS can help the OHA make Android the best open platform for Japan."

“Since its foundation, ACCESS’ vision has been to connect every device around the world through innovative mobile software technologies and services,” said Tomihisa Kamada, president, CEO and co-founder of ACCESS. “Supporting the Android platform helps deliver on our vision to innovate users’ lifestyles. We will continue to look for ways to bring our applications and services to the Android platform.”