The Rise Of Alternative Keyboards

from the the-keyboards-are-a-changing dept

Thu, Jul 22nd 2004 10:16am — Mike Masnick

As we go increasingly mobile, the question of shrinking the keyboard inevitably comes up. There have been all different concepts from the standard tiny thumb keyboard to things like Digit Wireless' Fast Tap technology which sneaks letter keys in between the number keys on a phone keypad. Michael Kanellos at News.com is now messing around with the FrogPad, the one handed portable keyboard that uses "chords" (combinations of keys) to type quickly. The biggest worry most people have is that if they already know how to touch type on a QWERTY keyboard, learning something entirely new will be difficult. He finds that there is, indeed, a noticeable learning curve, but with a little practice you can pick it up pretty quickly. The question, though, is whether or not enough people will want to go through that learning process.

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Prevalent Devices LLC, 30 Apr 2006 @ 5:53am

Phraze-It On-Screen Finger Typing Keyboard for the
Prevalent Devices LLC Phraze-It®: New On-Screen Finger Typing Keyboard improves usability and enhances functionality of Pocket PCs Subject: Finger-type on large adult-sized buttons and view and edit text in a roomy display area of your Pocket PC using the Phraze-It® full functionality on-screen multilingual keyboard. Overview: PDAs and PDA phones are very capable handheld computers constrained by awkward input methods. A brand new product called Phraze-It® offers comfortable, efficient and accurate finger-typing text entry and thumbing for entering a large amount of text into Pocket PCs. This intuitive and easy to use keyboard with multilingual support fits well on the touch screen of a PDA, leaves plenty of room for reviewing, correcting and editing text, provides capitalization, numbers, punctuation and symbols of a full-sized computer keyboard, and has large on-screen keys for finger-typing. Phraze-It® is based on patented technology designed to significantly increase the usability and productivity of PDAs with a unique design for reducing the number of text entry buttons. Phraze-It® is perfect for typing longer documents, emails, notes, contact lists etc. as well as for mobile messaging, browsing and easily entering text into your favorite Pocket PC applications, all on your PDA. Why tote around a heavy laptop when Phraze-It® gives you the ease, mobility and freedom to use your Pocket PC PDA for all text entry functions? Users can choose from a variety of eight keyboard layouts, as well as key designs & colors. Press Release: Prevalent Devices LLC Introduces the New Phraze-It® On-Screen Soft Keyboard for Finger-Typing on the Pocket PC The Phraze-It® Full-Function Soft Keyboard for PDAs offers large, adult-sized on-screen buttons for comfortable finger- typing of lengthier text, or thumbing, and a roomy text display area for reviewing and editing text in your favorite applications. New York - March 2006 - Prevalent Devices LLC announced the availability of its new on-screen mobile productivity application, Phraze-It® text entry software for Windows Mobile™ Pocket PC. Phraze-It® for Pocket PC is a unique on-screen keyboard and input method based upon patented technology that significantly improves text entry for handheld devices. This new productivity software enables users to comfortably finger-type a large amount of text onto their PDAs to optimally perform word processing, messaging, emails, browsing and other mobile input tasks on their Pocket PCs. A choice of eight on-screen keyboard layouts, including the premium keyboard, also offers mobile typing, and one-handed or two-handed typing or thumbing input to enhance the mobile user experience. Phraze-It® is also great for two-finger typists. Prevalent Devices LLC created and designed this data entry application to significantly advance the utility and usability of the Pocket PC as a handheld computer. Phraze-It® provides large on-screen buttons for adult-sized fingers for accurate text entry, an efficient keyboard with a small number of keys, each key with only one character at a time, the functionality of a full-size computer keyboard with numbers, capitalization, punctuation and symbols, easy text entry, correction and editing, and a uniquely familiar and very intuitive keyboard layout. The breakthrough Phraze-It® touch screen keyboard significantly reduces the number of on-screen keys, yet provides full keyboard functionality, large typing keys and a roomy text display area. This new customizable PDA input application also comes with keystroke reduction options, portrait or landscape modes and multilingual support in English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew (requires third party program), Spanish and Swedish. The Phraze-It® full-featured soft keyboard for your PDA is not only integrated with programs on the Pocket PC, but also enhances the capabilities of such programs by making text entry of lengthier documents more comfortable, efficient and accurate. Users can leave their laptops behind and take advantage of the ability to easily input a large amount of text on their PDAs, wireless PDAs and PDA phones. Phraze-It® has been logo certified by Microsoft® Designed for Windows Mobile® and is compatible with and designed for Windows Mobile®-based Pocket PCs. Phraze-It® runs on the Pocket PC 2003, Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition, Pocket PC 2003 SE, Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition, Windows Mobile® Pocket PC 2005 and Windows Mobile® Pocket PC 2005 Phone Edition. Phraze-It® transforms PDA phones with broadband capability and running Pocket PC phone editions into powerful mobile productivity tools to replace bulky laptops. Additionally, each full program includes the extended version of the Phraze-It® Game™, a fun game using the Phraze-It® keyboard to decode the secret words and phrases while testing your score against par. Availability Phraze-It® is available for ordering on the Prevalent Devices LLC website at www.prevalentdevices.com . A 7 day trial version with limited functionality is also available on the Prevalent Device LLC website. For more information about Phraze-It®, please visit our site at www.prevalentdevices.com About Prevalent Devices LLC is dedicated to creating innovative products and patented technologies, including Correlactive® technologies to support people in their desired tasks by making human interface with devices simple and satisfying.. To that end, Prevalent Devices LLC pursues intellectual property rights to protect such innovations. The company benefits from copyrights and key strategic patents in the areas of rapid and accurate entry of text and other Correlactive® technologies.
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