ASCII Corp has joined with 23 other firms to establish a new research company to develop the technology for an electronic library system: International Telemarketing Research Co is expected to do research into networks, character and graphic input and recognition techniques, in particular technology for the retrieval of character information from books and newspapers using a microcomputer; the Foundation Technology Research Promotion Center has put up 70% of the capital, with ASCII 3.99%, Tokyo Power at 3%, and a string of other companies including Kokusai Denshin Denwa, Canon, Nissho Iwai, Matsushita Communications, Sumitomo Bank, Toshiba, and the Nippon Keizai Shimbun taking 1.69% apiece.
