Windows PCs get 10 Phonetic Indic keyboards support

For more than two decades, Microsoft has been improving regional language support on Windows PCs in India and now, it is bringing a full-fledged smart Phonetic Indic keyboard for 10 languages including Bangla, Gujarathi, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu.

With this new tool, Indian users need not buy customized hardware or stickers to work in their native dialects. It will automatically convert text from one script to another. For instance, if we type ‘Bharat’ in Latin characters, the Phonetic keyboard will transliterate final output to भारत (Hindi), ভারত (Bengali), ભારત (Gujarati) or ਭਾਰਤ (Punjabi) depending on the target language.

"The new tools will not only help in making computing inclusive they are also expected to improve typing speed and accuracy in Indian languages by at least 20%. Moreover, they make many regional symbols (like the Indian numerals) easier to input," the company said.

Previously, Windows PC users had to separately download the Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool (ILIT) from the company’s Indic community website ‘Bhashaindia.com’ or from a third-party tool-developer website. But, not anymore.

Microsoft Windows PC users can make the best use of the new feature by upgrading to the latest Windows 10 update (19H1). Just Go to Settings> Updates & Security> Windows Update. Once the update is installed, they can activate the Phonetic keyboards by going to Language settings.

In a related development, Microsoft is reportedly working on dual-screen surface hybrid PC-cum-tablet, which is internally known as Centaurus.

Read more: Microsoft's new dual-screen Surface hardware under works

It is almost done with testing and if things go as planned, Centaurus may get launched before the end of 2019.

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