Microsoft has announced, in a blog post, the release of of a new phonetic keyboard that supports 10 Indian languages. Part of its May 2019 update of Windows 10, the phonetic keyboard is available in Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Microsoft said that before this, Indic language users had to buy customised Indic hardware keyboards or stickers, or download Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool or a third-party tool. The new keyboards are phonetic, meaning users will enter text in Latin characters, which will be transliterated into the appropriate language. For example, if a user types ‘Bharat’ in Latin characters, the keyboard will transliterate final output to भारत (Hindi), ভারত (Bengali), ભારત (Gujarati) or ਭਾਰਤ (Punjabi) depending on the target language. Microsoft said it expects the new tools to improve typing speed and accuracy in Indian languages by at least 20%, and make many regional symbols (such as Indian numerals) easier to input. It added that the new keyboard layouts will work with any Unicode-enabled applications and web browsers running on Windows 10. Unicode is a common text encoding standard used for most languages of the world. https://twitter.com/MicrosoftIndia/status/1140567261176127489?ref_src=twsrctfwtwcamptweetembedtwterm1140567261176127489&ref_url=httpseconomictimes.indiatimes.commagazinespanachewindows-10-gets-smart-keyboards-for-hindi-bangla-tamil-languagesarticleshow69826689.cms India-specific rollouts by Google and Apple Over the past two years, major tech firms have rolled out many features to cater specifically to the Indian market. Here are a few: Google launched its keyboard Gboard in 22 Indian languages in 2017. The languages supported include Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali,…
