The next input technology used in mobile devices?
As we continue to want to use mobile devices for communications our need for better input mechanisms and technology has been increasing. The speed of which we can use the devices has always been in focus. For grins see how this speed test of 9 different devices can be used to enter the infamous "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" and how various devices faired:
http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=6060.
I noticed some recent information on how the previous co-inventor of the now almost universal T9 input technology, Cliff Kushler and Randy Marsden, has been working on a new idea. The idea is basically around how you could with hand gestures over a visual keyboard pass over letters that make up a word in a continuous line. This will obviously pass over letters not needed for the word and the idea is that a built-in dictionary will parse through the combinations and give the most acceptable answer.
Some of the main strengths behind this idea is the low training skills needed to pick up a device with a standard keyboard layout and find the letters. The team at Swype is stating: "Even novice users can quickly achieve sustained data entry speeds of over 40 words per minute."
Not to be outdone, since there is no downloadable product to beta test on the Swype I found another company, Dasur, in Israel which has already has a patent on a solution very similar to Swype. They call it SlideIT and have a downloadable demo for Windows Mobile here. Check out their video on it below:
Product information:
http://www.swypeinc.com/product.html
http://www.dasur.co.il/
Reference article:
http://www.cnet.com.au/mobilephones/0,239025893,339291927,00.htm?feed=pt_entry
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