Seattle, Washington – May 7, 2019 – Wacom announced today at
Microsoft Build 2019, Microsoft Corp.’s annual developer conference, that it will further strengthen its partnership with Microsoft in aims to evolve the way people study and work. Wacom will provide its latest digital ink technology, WILL 3.0, to collaborate with Microsoft’s Ink Recognizer technology. To further strengthen Wacom’s Universal Pen Framework (UPF) partnership with Microsoft, which was initiated in 2016, Wacom also unveiled its upgraded “Bamboo Ink” capable of handling Wacom’s and Microsoft’s latest pen protocols.
Pen and ink are still a natural fast input method with no constraints, but yet there is a gap between them and state-of-the-art digital services like smart reminders, cloud-based task lists shared among devices, cloud storage and powerful search engines. To close this gap, the content put down with pen and ink needs to be fully understood instantly and digitally in a meaningful way so that an AI assistant can help to assist the user and provide additional information on demand.
During the presentation with Microsoft, Heidi Wang, Wacom’s Senior Vice President heading the Ink Division, stated “Wacom and Microsoft are entering a new phase in our partnership, which aims to deliver a true universal and modern experience with both ink and pen. We want to go beyond just digitizing notes to text. We strive to let AI understand the meaning of ink in order to support the customer with his or her daily tasks.”
Together with Microsoft, Wacom brings its vision of WILL Semantic Ink, the next level technology of Wacom’s new WILL 3.0 generation, to the modern note-taking experience. Toward the end of 2019, Wacom also plans to make this experience accessible for end users by integrating it into Wacom’s Inkspace applications.
“We’re happy to announce that our first partner to utilize of this new service is Wacom, a leader in the digital pen industry,” said Jerry Koh, Partner Group Program Manager of Microsoft’s Input.AI team. “Wacom is embracing the service to power the ink recognition capabilities in their popular Inkspace app in addition to enhancing it with new features, such as semantic understanding of the ink content, to give their users the best ink experience possible. We’re thrilled to have them as a partner and look forward to seeing the updates to Inkspace hit the market later this year,” he added.
Wacom also revealed its upgraded Bamboo Ink pen to best utilize these game-changing efforts by the two companies. The multiprotocol pen, which incorporates both Microsoft and Wacom’s newest pen innovation that is capable in alternation among protocols of Wacom’s Active ES® and Microsoft’s Pen Protocol, and ensures that ink input is even more natural with advanced features like lightweight feather touch pen tip and tilt function. Further details, including price and availability, will be offically announced by Wacom shortly.
About Wacom
Founded in 1983, Wacom is a global company based in Japan with subsidiaries and affiliate offices around the world to support marketing and distribution in over 150 countries and areas. It is the world’s leading manufacturer of pen tablets, interactive pen displays and digital interface solutions. The advanced technology of Wacom’s intuitive input devices has been used to create some of the most exciting digital art, films, special effects, fashion and designs around the world and provides business and home users with their leading interface technology to express their personality. The company also offers its products as OEM solutions to leading manufacturers serving incremental markets. Wacom’s interface technology, called Wacom Feel IT technologies, is also offered as an integrated solution to strategic partners. Most tablet device and PC manufacturers count on the advanced features and reliability to deliver a superior user interface experience. For further information about the products of Wacom see
www.wacom.com.
For more information, please contact:
Corporate Communications, Wacom Co., Ltd
Wacom-pr@wacom.co.jp
+81-3-5337-6702