Merriam-Webster Signs Agreement to Provide Dictionaries for C-Pen

Posted on April 13, 2001

C Technologies, developer of C-Pen, a handheld text recording device, have announced an agreement with Merriam-Webster Inc., a language reference publisher, to integrate Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus into C-Pen.

Through C-Pen, an entire dictionary with over 200,000 definitions can be accessed with a swipe of the C-Pen. C-Pen is a digital version of a highlighter, with the ability to record and store printed text from newspapers, magazines, books, etc. The text can then be transferred to a computer or beamed to a Palm PDA.

``The new alliance with Merriam-Webster will offer an additional feature of the C-Pen with great appeal to students, mobile professionals and anybody with an avid interest in the English language or who wants to increase their vocabulary. In today's world, verbal expression is critical and C-Technologies is pleased to provide an inexpensive and fun tool that will give people an advantage,'' says Lars Sundberg, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, C Technologies.

``We're happy to announce this agreement with C Technologies,'' said John Morse, President and Publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc. ``The C-Pen provides an exciting new way to utilize Merriam-Webster's reference products, and offers an invaluable service to anyone who works or plays with language.''

Additional titles from Merriam-Webster included in the agreement with C-Pen will be available for downloading during spring 2001. By moving C-Pen over printed text, as if highlighting, the information is scanned through an integrated digital camera. The scanned images are then transformed into computer-readable text by an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system, which stores the information as an editable text file in C-Pen, which can then be transferred to a Windows 95/98, NT/Windows 2000-based PC, or Palm via a built-in infrared port or cable. C-Pen weighs three ounces and can be calibrated for left-handed or right-handed use. Two varieties of the C-Pen will be available through national retail outlets in mid-April 2001 at prices of $150 and $200.