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Technology Stocks : Zi-Corp (ZICA), formerly MCUAF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pete Mason who wrote (1461)	9/20/1999 12:36:00 PM
From: CocoBob	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 2082

Pete:To Send and receive personnal nd business chinese internet email messages by GSM cell technology - non English speaking chinese can use such now (including computers.) For more info see transcript of CC on Ragingbull.com under Zi thread #711.

To: Pete Mason who wrote (1461)	9/21/1999 2:31:00 PM
From: John Stichnoth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2082

how exactly do input methods for Chinese languages impact cell phones? Although one country, China has numerous dialects. And even those dialects contain a lot of homonyms that lead to ambiguity. The ambiguity can be solved by looking at the character in question. It's a little bit like hearing someone say "read" or "reed" or "reid". Usually the context tells the meaning, but sometimes not. That can happen more often in Chinese, I understand. Potential buyers of the phones will spend the vast majority of their airtime speaking their others in their own dialect, but they will want to buy phones that allow them to communicate with someone who doesn't speak their own dialect. One possibility: A businessman in one area (speaks his local dialect and mandarin) calls across country and reaches a secretary who speaks only her local dialect. They use Zi input to let the secretary know who he wants to talk to. That other person (who speaks lthe second local dialect and mandarin) gets on the phone and the conversation goes on normally, in mandarin. This presupposes (1) both phones have Zi input, and (2) the input is sent instantly when the send button is hit, not as e-mail. The Longs' argument is that there is a very powerful network element in the value of Zi. If only 1% of the phones have Zi, it's not worth very much. But, if it is standard equipment--then it's very valuable. Of course, how valuable to Zi depends on how much they receive per phone--which I have never seen stated. Best, JS