BlindType has been acquired by Google

http://blindtype.com/blog.html?entry=temp

by Uncle_Sam • 16 years ago

70 18 16 years ago

csallen2• 16 years ago

Their website looks like it was created by BlindDesign...

From the videos, they do have pretty killer technology, although they haven't even released it yet, and there are competitors aplenty. I'm curious, does anyone know what an "acquisition" like this usually amounts to in terms of money? At this scale, it's almost never talked about (ex. reMail's acquisition).

points2• 16 years ago

Can you explain what the killer technology is?

From my naive POV, it just does a couple of mappings in 2d space fitting a keyboard over the points you press, until some real words drop out. If that's all they have, it sure doesn't sound like much. Sounds more like a rainy weekends work.

stackthat3• 16 years ago

Focusing one specific problem and solving it in the best way possible (this doesn't mean hardcore-awesome-superb-crazy coding) is still a pretty killer thing to have. That's why it's worthy to Google, do your rainy weekend work and sell to Google, then pleas submit to HN.

shasta• 16 years ago

This technology could be amazing. Currently, about 50% of the time, if I spell something wrong or type a name that's not in the dictionary, my phone replaces my entry with something radically and comically different. With four additional degrees of freedom to play with, I'm sure they can get that percentage up to over 99%.

jdrock• 16 years ago

Looks like cool technology, but Swype still is faster and provides a better interface.

hbz• 16 years ago

Now all we need is BlindSwype. The functionality of both products aren't mutually exclusive!

geluso• 16 years ago

Exactly! I was disappointed to see this last part in their mission statement:

"With current systems, focus on the keyboard is always needed. It is almost impossible to slide the finger on letters without paying attention on the screen. Focusing elsewhere, even for a split second makes it extremely difficult to resume the word in-progress."

This is the exact assumption they are battling with tap typing. I wish they would realize that their same system could infer tap points given a swipe path.

Let the users type how they want, whether tap or swipe, and let their algorithms figure out the rest.

noamsml• 16 years ago

What does this mean for BlindType on the iPhone?

icegreentea• 16 years ago

The original implementation of BlindType (the one in all the demos) cannot be used on current iOS devices cause it violates Apple's terms. Apple doesn't want people replacing the default keyboard... so yeah.

They mentioned originally that they would submit to the App Store knowing that it would be rejected, but wanted to force Apple to look at what they were banning due to their conditions.

Once Apple allows it? I have no idea what would happen. Google does release a lot of iPhone apps, but those all tie into Google services. This does not. At all.

extension• 16 years ago

It will drive Apple nuts if Android ends up with an obviously superior typing experience than the iPhone. This could be a turning point in their patent war.

aspir• 16 years ago

Congrats Kostas and Panos! Enjoy life at the Googleplex!

mildavw• 16 years ago

What will happen if it becomes a standard for input and you have users grow up with it who never learned QWERTY? It's premise--that you're typing with a QWERTY layout in mind--then becomes broken.

Someone can then invent QwertyType: an actual keyboard on the screen. This will be faster for these users because they won't have to guess where the software thinks they think the keys are.

BlindType has been acquired by Google

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