Technology Advances In The Mobile Computing
- Optimized Text Entry On Handheld Devices -

What are the Problems of Text Entry in Small footprint Devices ?

• Absence of a keyboard or limited function keyboard

• Size of the keyboard

• Difficulty and speed of entry

• Human factors and ergonomics

• Amount of storage and processor power required to predict information for prompt acceptance by the user

Solution
Current solutions to entering text into handheld devices before voice input becomes more feasible are based on a variety of approaches. Some of these are based on:

• multi-tapping of the same key 

• predictive text entry (t9 approach)

• linguistically optimal predictive text (LOPT) entry solution for typing on mobile devices - Eatoni's approach called letterwise and wordwise 

Who is Doing the Research? 

• www.eatoni.com

• smart telephone manufacturers

Comparison Between Competing Technologies

• Go here for a vendor's view 

Vendors Involved

• AlphaGrip - has patented a 2-handed touch-typing technique that allows faster rate of text entry by using vertical hand orientation on 8 full-sized, multi-directional buttons located on the back of a device.

• Eatoni 

• Digit Wireless - Fastap is an input technology developed by Digit Wireless, LLC (a startup in Cambridge, Mass, USA). It facilitates easier text input on a mobile handset. Fastap provides the functionality of a full keypad including punctuation capabilities in the space of a mobile handset keypad. 
  
  By using raised and lowered keys, it allows you to enter text and numbers. The concept resembles hills and valleys (a veritable wireless Sound of Music) on a mobile handset keypad. When you press a hill you get the letter shown on the hill, when you press the valley you're really pressing at least 2 diagonals of the surrounding hill keys. 
  
  Through a software operation, the handset is able to identify the character required by the user. The technology will to be licensed to handset manufacturers. We should be seeing the first handsets incorporating this input technology in late. According to press reports, Audiovox has licensed the technology. 

  Brenda Sky, an industry analyst, specializing in handsets, considers this keyboard better than Ericsson's hardware Chatboard solution and Triple- Tap or T9 software solutions, this product is incredibly easy to use, more intuitive than predictive text, easy to learn, simple to operate, and can be used with one hand.

Status of Technology

• Early development stage - some products to appear in late 2001.

More Information About Text Entry 

• Linguistically Optimized Text Entry on a Cell Phone - by Hedy Kober, Eugene Skepner, Terry Jones, Howard Gutowitz, and Scott MacKenzie

• A Survey of Alternate Text-Entry Methods.

• LetterWise: Prefix-based Disambiguation for Mobile Text Input (PDF) - by Hedy Kober, Eugene Skepner, Terry Jones, Howard Gutowitz, and Scott MacKenzie - a research report showing a comparison of text input efficiency with different methods after long term training