Photos: New tech from HP Labs India

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The Hewlett-Packard Labs India team demonstrated some of its innovations at a presentation Thursday at HP's R&D headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.
The Indian team has created the Gesture Keyboard, which uses handwriting-recognition software. The keyboard is developed specifically for people who speak Hindi or the state language Kannada. People can write on the keyboard in the way they learned to write as a child, and for this reason, training time on the board takes only 10 minutes.

Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com
HP Labs India's Gesture Keyboard debuted two weeks ago and sells for about $50. The keyboard caters to two languages--Hindi and Kannada, the state language--but the company said it will develop software for all 14 national dialects of India.

HP believes this technology will lower the barriers for many people to get access to the vast amount of data online that the government and universities have contributed.

Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com
HP Labs India also demonstrates Printcast, a technology for porting encoded content files alongside broadcasts, so viewers can print material they've seen on TV. Many Indian children and adults get an education through distance learning TV programs developed by the government, and HP's Printcast would let teachers, homemakers or community organizations print supplemental transcripts of the programs. The technology embeds content into an MPEG 2 file, which is then delivered to a device that can unwrap the data and send it to an attached printer.

Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com

The Hewlett-Packard Labs India team demonstrated some of its innovations at a presentation Thursday at HP's R&D headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

The Indian team has created the Gesture Keyboard, which uses handwriting-recognition software. The keyboard is developed specifically for people who speak Hindi or the state language Kannada. People can write on the keyboard in the way they learned to write as a child, and for this reason, training time on the board takes only 10 minutes.

Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com

By Bill Detwiler

Bill Detwiler is Editor in Chief of TechRepublic and the host of Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Prior to joining TechRepublic in 2000, Bill was an IT manager, database administrator, and desktop support specialist in the ...

By Bill Detwiler

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