Sanyo Electric Co has released the latest model in its OCR-based hand-written character recognition units: called the CLL-5500D, the unit is a successor to the CLL-3300D released in 1987, and subsequently upgraded by connection via the NEC Corp PC-9800 and AX series machines; Sanyo’s units have been used to replace forms-based data input work in fields such as life insurance customer data and claims input, and in school test grading; the units are capable of recognising 3300 handwritten Japanese characters, recognition of input images, freedom of forms design for input, and higher speed and power, with the recognition functions implemented in gate arrays and with processing power double that of previous models; the desktop version costs $15,000, and production will start at the rate of 100 units per month; the optical character recognition market is forecast to reach 13,200 units, 28.4% up on last year.
