(Text on 9 Keys) A text input system from Nuance Communications, Inc., Burlington, MA (www.nuance.com/t9) that adds intelligence to multi-tapping letters on a telephone keypad. For example, instead of typing 8-4-4-3-3 for the word "the," you would type only 8-4-3, and T9 would recognize it as "t-h-e." For words with numerous meanings, the default word is displayed first, and you can select from a list. To enter a proprietary name, you switch to multi-tapping mode, type the name, then back to T9 mode.

AOL Taps the Potential
T9 was developed by start-up Tegic Communications (www.t9.com), which was acquired by AOL in 1999. AOL heavily promoted the T9 capability for faster messaging, with the T9 software embedded in billions of handsets worldwide ever since. In 2007 Nuance acquired T9 from the AOL Time Warner business unit. See multi-tapping.