ART And Franklin Go Straight to the Head of the eBook Class.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 2, 2000

eBookman(R) Users benefit from simpliWriteTM's

Natural Handwriting Recognition 

ART, Advanced Recognition Technologies, Inc., the acknowledged industry leader of voice and handwriting recognition technology, today announced that it will be providing its simpliWriteTM handwriting recognition technology to Franklin Electronic Publishers (NYSE:FEP), the leading worldwide provider of handheld eBooks, with 23 million electronic books sold in over 45,000 retail outlets worldwide.

The agreement builds on the synergies of ART-Franklin technologies. Franklin's simpliWriteTM enabled eBookman(R) will provide a natural handwriting environment as a strong benefit to its unmatched combination of features, giving users the ability to annotate their eBook content, take notes, schedule appointments or make any written comment.

Franklin and ART can now take eBookman(R) beyond the realm of easy, enjoyable reading by adding the ability to annotate through the addition of user-input natural handwritten text, at the touch of a stylus - straight out of the box, without any training or learning curve. Franklin's eBookman(R), with simpliWriteTM handwriting recognition capability, is scheduled for a Q3 2000 launch.

Gregory J. Winsky, Executive Vice President of Franklin said "The addition of simpliWriteTM to eBookman(R) is critical to the success of our rich multimedia platform. Franklin and ART are committed to work together in this burgeoning mobile market. By joining simpliWriteTM with eBookman(R), we are offering worldwide users a novel experience in reading and writing. From now on, eBookman(R) readers will not only be able to read the great works of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy but they will also be able to annotate these great works, storing their own insights for future reference."

Ramsay Hall, Vice President U.S. Operations said "Franklin's unmatched leadership and contributions to the e-book market make the company a sought-after partner. We are extremely pleased to be teaming up with Franklin and regard simpliWriteTM as a perfect complement to the exploding e-book market. The next step would be to add our voice recognition technology to the platform, capitalizing on its full potential."

About simpliWriteTM -- the Natural Handwriting Character Input Method for embedded systems 

simpliWriteTM is an advanced software solution enabling the user to write any message in his or her own natural handwriting - on a full screen, limited area or dedicated box using a stylus, or using a finger on a touchpad. There are no new characters or new symbols to learn. With simpliWriteTM there is no training phase, as the program immediately recognizes the user's own handwriting. simpliWriteTM recognizes characters on the fly and produces recognition results immediately upon the termination of each character. What's more, the program allows users to write each character on top of the previous one - resulting in fast corrections, and facilitating use on even the limited screen space. simpliWriteTM supports direct input of all alphanumeric characters for rapid text entry and includes many of the most frequently used text-editing features, such as "backspace" and "new-line". In addition to English, it recognizes most Western European languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch. Users can choose one language or all. simpliWrite supports a wide variety of platforms, including Palm OS-driven handheld organizers, Windows CE devices, EPOC devices, cellular handsets, and more.

About ART

Established in 1990, ART, Advanced Recognition Technologies Inc. focuses on providing Human User Interface solutions for wireless devices, cellular handsets, personal organizers and electronic appliances. ART's innovative voice and handwriting recognition technologies are implemented in telecommunication devices, mobile communications, palm-size handheld devices and PC-based applications. ART holds over 40 patents and patent applications worldwide, protecting ART's technologies, which are based on unique, signal processing algorithms. ART licenses its voice and handwriting recognition technologies - smARTspeak(R), smARTwriter(R) and simpliWriteTM - to global industry leaders, such as: Motorola, Philips, Casio, Samsung, LGIC, NeoPoint, Acer, Maxon, A.T. Cross, ZiLOG, Siemens Automotive, Optimay-Lucent, TTPCom and Hutel. Deloitte & Touche recently recognized ART in its Technology Fast 500 program, which ranks ART as the 99th fastest growing technology company in the US. The Company can be reached at http://www.artcomp.com

About Franklin Electronic Publishers

Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. (NYSE: FEP), the worldwide market leader in handheld electronic books, introduced its new multimedia eBook platform, eBookman(R), in June. The Company is the exclusive producer and distributor of the ROLODEX(R) Electronics brand of personal information management products. Franklin has sold more than 23,000,000 electronic books and currently publishes more than 200 titles, including dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries; encyclopedias; Bibles; entertainment titles; education and tutorial publications; and medical reference works. Franklin products, available in sixteen languages, are sold in 45,000 retail outlets worldwide, through catalogs and on line at http://www.franklin.com. The Company has sales and distribution subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Benelux countries, Canada, Australia and Mexico, and production management offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

ROLODEX(R) is a registered trademark of Berol Corporation, a subsidiary of Newell Rubbermaid, Inc. Rocket eBook(tm) is a trademark of NuvoMedia, Inc.

smARTspeak(R), smARTspeak CS(R), smARTwriter(R) and simpliWriteTM are registered trademarks of ART. Franklin, BOOKMAN and eBookman(R) are trademarks of Franklin Electronic Publishers.