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Next Generation T9 Keyboard Technology

Posted by samzenpus on from the type-in-a-new-way dept.

Iddo Genuth writes "Cliff Kushler, the inventor of the T9 keyboard technology for numeric keypads, has developed a new alphanumeric entry technology for touch-screen laptops and Smartphone devices. This latest technology, named Swype, works with an on-screen QWERTY keyboard similar to ones found on Windows Mobile and the iPhone. The difference from the usual method of typing in the letters is that a finger or stylus is used to slide in the first letter, then without lifting the finger, the user continues writing the entire word. Only once the word is completed can the finger be lifted off. According to the developers, this leads to a much faster way of 'typing,' or as we might call it soon, 'swiping.'"

5 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Re:bleh by scoot80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I find it works well, unless I want to type a message in a different language. Then it really goes bad. But, I've got a Nokia, and it works great. once you make it learn a few words by spelling them yourself (usually suburb names) its great. If you wanna use slang, hit the hash key a few times, and it takes it off T9, so you can free type.

    But when typing a normal SMS, T9 predictive input makes it so much easier for me.

  2. WritingPad by blacklint · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've had an iPhone application for quite a while that uses this. It's called WritingPad, and the about screen has a link to http://shapewriter.com/.

  3. This was "swype'd" from Dr Zhai, of IBM, research by mTor · · Score: 5, Informative

    Take a look at this demo of ShapeWriter from IBM. It's the same thing as Swype and was invented 5 years ago. Dr Zhai has formed a company around the tech and you can see it here: ShapeWriter.

  4. writingpad iphone app by mdaitc · · Score: 2, Informative

    i've been using the writingpad iphone app for months that does just this.
    http://www.shapewriter.com/iphone.html

  5. Re:A simple question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I got to try out Swype last fall at the TC50. It's pretty great technology, as I remember to do a double letter you just needed to loop around the letter.