| Bitstream Releases Font Fusion
2.2, the Fastest Font Engine On the Market Bitstream is also releasing the Wireless Font Set, designed specifically for handheld and wireless devices CAMBRIDGE, MA — January 29, 2002 — Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) announced today the release of Font Fusion 2.2 , the company's smallest, most advanced font rasterizing engine and the fastest font engine on the market today. Simultaneously, Bitstream is releasing the Wireless Font Set , which is made up of high-quality fonts that render well at small point sizes on any display. The fonts are designed specifically for handheld and wireless devices and produce high-quality output for color LCD, grayscale, and black-and-white displays. Bitstream assembled the Wireless Font Set using the Kaasila font family. This family of fonts is designed specifically for wireless devices, and is named in honor of Font Fusion's chief software architect, Sampo Kaasila. The Wireless Font Set allows Font Fusion to render characters for a specific device, making the text easy to read. These fonts have been fine-tuned and are specifically designed to fit as much text as possible onto a small screen, as well as provide maximum legibility at small sizes. The fonts are all new designs and are delta-hinted. Delta hinting is the process of fine-tuning fonts so that they are easy to read at small sizes. Hinting has been optimized to produce the best quality output for color LCD displays. These fonts also display high-quality output on grayscale screens and black-and-white displays. The Wireless Font Set includes four proportional fonts, four monospaced fonts, and one symbol font:
"We are very pleased to announce the completion of Font Fusion 2.2 and the Wireless Font Set. As devices get smaller, the ability to read characters on the screen becomes critical. Companies developing the hottest wireless and handheld gadgets now have a solution that will give them great looking text on their displays," said Anna Chagnon, President of Bitstream. "With this release of Font Fusion, we have solidified our position as the leading font rendering technology for wireless devices, handheld devices, and other embedded systems. Font Fusion produces high-quality output and supports 8 different font rasterizers. And we have the fastest font engine on the market, including the fastest TrueType rasterizer available." What Our Partners Have to Say "Font Fusion complements the QNX Photon microGUI with its speed, ease-of-use, and high performance under memory constraints," said Linda Campbell, vice president of strategic alliances at QNX Software Systems. "With Font Fusion, QNX customers building Internet appliances, in-car telematics systems, and other embedded devices can deliver fast, highly readable displays, and, ultimately, a better user experience." "Bitstream is the recognized leader in font technology," said Leo
Jolicoeur, Vice President, Product Marketing, for WebEx. "Incorporating
Bitstream's Font Fusion into our interactive communications platform
will enable WebEx to offer our customers and partners fast, accurate
text rendering during their WebEx meetings." About Font Fusion Available as an SDK (Software Developers' Kit), Font Fusion is able to rasterize 8 different font formats: TrueType®, Type 1, CFF/Type2, T2K® Latin, T2K Asian, TrueDoc® PFR (portable font resource), Bitstream Speedo®, and Font Fusion stroke (FFS) format, as well as embedded bitmaps. Developers can also license a number of different suites of fonts, including delta-hinted screen fonts and the TV Font Pack. Font Fusion is small and fast. Most developers can compile the source code in 32-105 KB, depending on options. It generates more than 16,000 characters per second, using the Arial® font at 25 lines per em on a 233MHz Pentium® II processor, cache turned off. Font Fusion performs well in memory- and performance-constrained environments. For example, a complete traditional Chinese TrueType font with over 13,000 characters can occupy as much as 8 MB. With Font Fusion, the same characters occupy less than 0.5 MB, representing considerable savings in memory and disk space costs. Font Fusion is designed for operating systems, software applications,
Web applications, low-resolution screen devices, multimedia servers,
high-definition television screens (HDTVs), set-top boxes, continuous
tone printers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other embedded
systems and information and wireless appliances. Bitstream Inc. Founded in 1981, Bitstream is the first digital font foundry. In
1999, Bitstream created MyFonts.com, Inc. (http://www.myfonts.com),
the Web site for finding, trying, and buying fonts on line. Bitstream
is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bob Thomas |