Remember that episode of
The Simpsons where Homer gets too fat to be able to dial a number? Well, he wouldn't have had that problem had BlindType been around. This
soft keyboard is described by its makers as being extremely resilient to inaccurate input and looking at the demo video after the break, you kinda have to agree -- it seems to have a pretty kickass predictive algorithm. Aside from that, the keyboard also dynamically adjusts to wherever and however you choose to type, meaning its size and orientation track along to your input, which goes some way to justifying the somewhat odd name (it's meant for blind operation, not blind people). Text can be inserted without the keyboard even being on screen, while spaces are added by swiping to the right. BlindType should be coming to
Android and
iOS devices some time in the near future.
[Thanks, Fadl]
Update: We asked BlindType's makers whether implementing their software will require replacing Apple's default button slate and they've confirmed that it would. They're making and submitting it for iOS use, nonetheless, "to put pressure on Apple to finally allow this kind of thing."
posted July 22nd 2010 2:40AM
Damn apple you better approve this.
Well I hope that they're ready to release this via-cydia for ios then because Apple isn't going to care about that "putting on the pressure" crap.
Let's see Google or Apple gets a hand on this start-up
I'm more excited for Apple to let 3rd Party keyboards in the App Store, doubt it'll happen, but I need my Dvorak. .
Looks like some good work. If they really wanted to get it on iOS all the need to do is focus on Android. This last keyboard released for Android has immediate success in Beta. If this thing hit the market it would fly and I doubt Apple would want to be left out so they'd work around and approve it.
some really good tech too... the auto correct part could definitely be beneficial to both software and hardware keyboard users..
Looks good on the tablet in the video, a smaller screen will be a tougher test.
Here is another take on a custom keyboard...one which bends to accommodate the curve of the hand as configured by the user:
http://www.rainydaymagazine.com/RDM2010/RainyDayEngineering/Week5/RDEFeb0110.htm#iPadVirtualKeyboard
looks good... but I prefer swype.
This is pretty incredible. There's nothing more annoying than had predictive typing so I'm getting this the second it's released to the market
'In other news, Apple has acquired the rights to a developers work, due to release new keyboard auto-correcting algorithms..'
All i can say is this: good job devs for this is a great step in what regards input methods
But personally i don't use auto-correct. I had an htc hero and used the default keyboard, typed the full word etc. Now i have an iphone 3g and i'm writing this message using it't keyboard...i don't see the point of replacing your default input method as long as you know how to use it, how it works and all of that...
Just for the record, writing this message on my iphone took me like 5 minutes because i am slow-minded and i had to think what to write
Moving from a Sony Ericsson phone with extremely poor text prediction I was extremely impressed by my new HTC Android phone's built-in text prediction feature. This BlindType is in a whole new league of it's own. It just blows everything else out of the water (if that video is legit).
Get out of my head!
This is crazy awesome. Incidentally I'd love to see ubiquitous auto-correction and suggestions on the desktops, i.e. not just inside word, or firefox, or what not.