Eatoni Ergonomics unveils text entry software
"Eatoni's new text entry software resolves the worldwide problem of entering URLs, proper names, abbreviations, and addresses during mobile messaging or wireless Web sessions," Gutowitz said.
Until now, typing on a telephone keypad has been painful at best. The company's linguistically optimal predictive text entry software makes the standard mobile telephone keypad as comfortable, fast, accurate, and versatile as a full typewriter keyboard. By making short and instant messages faster and easier to send from mobile phones, Eatoni promises to fuel the already explosive growth in mobile text messaging.
"Eight billion messages per month are now being sent in Europe and Asia, and the rate is doubling every six months," Gutowitz said.
"By making it simple to enter URLs from a telephone keypad, Eatoni will make true wireless Web surfing possible. By making it easy to enter names of people, products, places, and services, Eatoni will help make interaction with m-commerce sites as user friendly as wired e-commerce sites."
The company has received patent and trademark protection for two products, LetterWise and WordWise, and further protection is pending. LetterWise is a direct replacement for the familiar multi-tap system. It requires a negligible amount of memory in mobile phone handsets, and is ready for immediate installation by any manufacturer or service provider that seeks a license. It is so small and efficient that it can run on a subscriber identity module (SIM) card.
WordWise is a linguistically optimized replacement for word-guessing algorithms, which some mobile phone manufacturers have installed in an attempt to alleviate their users' text-entry burden. Unfortunately, these dictionary-based methods cannot handle many common text-entry tasks, such as entering URLs. They require constant attention from the user to verify the guess being made. WordWise does not use a dictionary but works on the statistics of linguistic patterns. These statistical patterns allow the product to support quick entry of proper names, URLs, abbreviations, slang, and other words not in a dictionary.
Because it does not require constant verification from the user, it can be touch-typed, and because it does not require a dictionary, the product uses less than half as much memory as a dictionary-based method. Neither LetterWise nor WordWise require any material modification to handsets or networks.
"Easy to use, easy to install, the Eatoni technology will allow people to do more things with their wireless devices, do them faster, while they carry fewer pieces of hardware," Gutowitz said. "It will simplify and expand the world of wireless communication."
Edited by Ellen Jensen
Managing Editor, Wireless Networks Online