Whirlscape continues to build momentum for the Minuum keyboard. On January 21, the UTEST grad launched a demo of their keyboard on a Galaxy Gear Smart Watch.
The remarkably accurate keyboard that encourages sloppy typing for smartphones and wearable technology uses a disambiguation algorithm to make sense of any letter combination, so it’s been proven perfect for big fingers.
Xavier Snelgrove, Minuum’s co-founder and CTO, wrote a detailed explanation on the creation of the keyboard in Input, a blog by Minuum’s creators. From language models to algorithm descriptions, the post offers fans of Minuum an inside look at the science that makes the technology so user-friendly.
The Toronto-based start-up was covered by TechCrunch, TechCrunch Japan, Mobile Syrup and Android Police within hours of the demo’s release.
Whirlscape has also released version 1.2.2. of Minuum – their best and most stable version. Users can even download the keyboard in German, Italian, French and Spanish, as well as English.
Other Whirlscape news:
- They’ve joined Y Combinator, a prestigious accelerator based in Mountain View, California in the United States.
- Technology reporter Matthew Braga listed Whirlscape as one of seven Canadian start-ups to watch in 2014. in a January 5, 2013 Financial Post article.
- Whirlscape was also listed in MaRS Innovation’s top ten list for 2013.
The company is promising Minuum on more products in the next few months.
Here’s an excerpt from Darrell Etherington‘s article in TechCrunch:
Whirlscape had always designed their keyboard to be usable on any number of connected devices, including wearables, the founders told me in the past. Today, they’ve got proof: As you can see in the video above, Minuum running on a Galaxy Gear smartwatch manages text input much more conveniently than you might imagine possible from a screen so small. It was filmed in a single take, too, according to the Minuum team, without any fancy camera tricks.
For now, Minuum says this is just an “in-house demo,” at least until Samsung opens up the Gear platform, but the company also tells me that it’s already in talks with other smartwatch manufacturers who can put the software on shipping devices “in the upcoming months.”
You can read more Whirlscape news in MaRS Innovation’s archive.
Posted by Kailee Travis, writer and communications assistant.