Touch Screen

T9 inventor demos new text input method

Paul Mah — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:07:51 -0400

Cliff Kushler, the inventor of the T9 keyboard technology found in practically every mobile phone with a numeric pad, was at TechCrunch50 this week. There, he demoed a new data entry technology called Swype that is specifically targeted toward touch-screen devices. With just a stylus or a finger, Swype is said to allow data entry of over 50 words per minute via an on-screen QWERTY keyboard. To input a word, all the user has to do is to "connect the letters" in a single swipe. With the help of a built-in 65,000-word dictionary, obvious and creative spelling errors are automatically corrected. Ambiguous selections, if any, are presented in a word menu that pops out. At the moment, the development team is focused on Windows Mobile as well as the tablet version of XP and Vista. It hopes to secure licensing deals with OEMs.

To look at the video of Swype in action:
- check out this CNET News article

Designing a dedicated web tablet

Paul Mah — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:48:35 -0400

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has issued a call to create a "dirt cheap touch screen web tablet" that will be used primarily to surf the Internet. The basic idea is to give it relatively low-end specifications and squeeze it all into the form factor of Apple's Macbook Air. The device will run nothing more than a customized fork of Firefox on top of a lean Linux kernel.

Apparently, a supply chain management company has said that such a machine can be created for just "a few hundred dollars." The goal though, is to get it down to below $300. So what's next now? Well, the marketing documents are being outlined, after which the specifications for the hardware will be drawn up. The response from the community to get this moving seems to be overwhelming so far. Check out the project page here.

For more on this Web Tablet:
- check out this article from TechCrunch

Touch screen BlackBerry spotted

Paul Mah — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:40:15 -0400

Photographs of the new BlackBerry Thunder Smartphone have been posted by the folks over at The Boy Genius. Rumors of this new touch screen device have been floating around for quite a while now, though this is the first time that actual photos of this elusive device have surfaced.

Though the signature convenience keys are there, the BlackBerry Thunder is a clear departure from the conventional BlackBerry, which has always featured some kind of hardware keyboard. There is also no sign of any trackball or scroll wheel, though two touch-capacitance buttons have been added to the top edge for locking the Smartphone and to interact with the built-in music player respectively.

For more on the BlackBerry Thunder:
- check out the InformationWeek article