User-friendly WAP tech unveiled

User-friendly WAP tech unveiled

SAN FRANCISCO, JAN 7: You just left work and want to catch up with an old friend. You send a brief message using your wireless-Web-enabled phone: "Meet me for dinner." But unfortunately for you, typing the message requires roughly 30 taps on the number keys.

A few small technology companies, anticipating that the mobile phone will become the hand-held device of choice, are devising ways to reduce this annoying, index-finger strain and make Wireless Application Protocol phones - which have so far failed to catch on with consumers - less cumbersome.

RealNames Corp of Redwood City, Calif., recently announced that Bellevue, Wash., VoiceStream Wireless Corp will include RealNames' keyword-based navigation system on VoiceStream-subscribed WAP-enabled phones. VoiceStream doesn't yet have WAP phones like those of its competitor Sprint Corp, but plans to begin offering them in the first quarter of 2001.

RealNames technology lets Internet users access Web sites by typing simple keywords instead of more formal "www" addresses. Users can go directly to pages of corporate sites by typing in names of specific products, such as "Nintendo Sports" or "eBay Collectibles". The technology also completes keywords, so tapping `am' will yield results for companies such as `Amazon.com,' and `American Airlines'.

RealNames has more than 1.3 million names in its database for the regular Web. Its wireless-Web database is minute in comparison - with just 1,200 entries - but is growing. "Our technology on a mobile phone is a natural," says Nicolas Popp, RealNames chief technology officer. For instance, "if a Web site is not listed on (a mobile phone's) start page, the only way you can access it is to type in the address." Since this is difficult with present WAP technology, RealNames hopes to simplify the process, allowing users to get accurate results with fewer taps.

RealNames, which canceled an initial public offering in May 2000, already has some high-profile partners. Redwood City, Calif, Openwave Inc, formerly Phone.com Inc, agreed to use RealNames technology in its server, which it licenses to mobile-phone makers. VoiceStream isn't a Phone.com customer, so RealNames courted the company itself.

RealNames Web technology is also integrated into numerous versions of Redmond, Wash., Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer browser; and in March 2000, Microsoft acquired a 20% stake in RealNames. Internet search-engine giant AltaVista Co. also uses the technology.

Meanwhile, Mountain View, Calif., search engine Google Inc has created Google Number Search, or GNS, an algorithm-based tool that processes abbreviated queries. The company introduced a test version in September, when it said it planned to release GNS to the public before the end of 2000. With the technology still in beta, here is how it works: Rather than typing the apocryphal combination 666 for the letter `o', users can press a single number 6 and, based on the context of the word, a letter will come up with possible queries that hopefully present users with appropriate results.

Theoretically, this is a good idea, but wireless Google users - like other wireless users - still must type numbers for letters, something no one likes to do. With this in mind, San Diego, Calif, mobile-phone designer and application developer NeoPoint Inc has created a keyboard for its phones.

NeoPoint phones are made by LG Electronics, a manufacturer in Seoul, South Korea, and have an 11-line screen, a built-in digital assistant, and wireless Internet and e-mail capabilities. A version of NeoPoint's phone has been available from Sprint PCS since September 1999. NeoPoint's other partners include Verizon Wireless and America Online Inc. (NeoPoint cancelled its initial public offering in July 2000.)

The 26-letter keyboard, called NeoPad, wors only with NeoPoint phones and looks like a cradle for a hand-held computer. The resulting amalgam of mobile phone and keyboard resembles Research in Motion Inc.'s Blackberry e-mail device. Users can drop their phone into the cradle and use their thumbs to type out a short e-mail, enter address and phone lists and perform other tasks. The value of combining a phone with a keyboard is that users can pick up the phone and make a call rather than just receiving and answering e-mail.