Hasta La Gadget!

Some people actually find it quite easy to type on a tablet’s virtual keyboard as opposed to one on a smartphone, obviously because the keys are larger on the tablet as it has relatively more screen real estate. However, there’s one major problem that tablet owners might have experienced. Users can’t rest their fingers or wrists on the screen when typing, because the touch is registered, which ends up pressing different keys unintentionally. Dryft, a software based keyboard developed by Swype’s co-founder, hopes to eliminate this problem. It automatically positions keys beneath the user’s fingertips, thus allowing them to rest their fingers or wrists on the display without any accidental key presses.

Swype is a popular software keyboard for Android, if not the most popular. Randy Marsden is the co-founder of Swype, he has founded Dryft with Rob Chaplinsky, who is a managing partner at a San Francisco based venture capital firm. Dryft uses the tablet’s accelerometer sensor alongside its touch sensor to tell the difference between the user resting and typing. It also eliminates the need to keel keys since the dynamic keyboard automatically forms under the user’s fingers. Right now Dryft is in beta development. The company is courting manufacturers to which it can license the keyboard to and also developers, who will be given the ability to integrate Dryft in their apps through a SDK.

Dryft Hopes To Improve Typing Experience On Tablets original content from Ubergizmo.

You’ve seen them on planes, in coffee shops, maybe even at the office: tablets tethered to Bluetooth keyboards. Those users pecking away at hardware keys because using their slate’s software grid is nothing more than an exercise in futility. Dryft is a soft keyboard built by Swype co-founder Randy Mardsen that aims to change that. You see, most of us are touch-typers and rest our hands on the ‘home row’ of keys to tell our fingers where to reach all the other letters. But, the smooth surface of tablet displays prevents our phalanges from finding the proper orientation. Dryft eliminates that problem by automagically positioning the keys beneath your fingertips wherever they may be, and by allowing users to rest their hands on the screen.

Dryft can do this because it doesn’t rely solely on the touch sensors embedded in the screen, it also uses accelerometer data to determine if your fingertips are taking a break or are pecking away with purpose. Because of its reliance upon high fidelity signals from the accelerometer to work well, Dryft needs low-level access to that sensor’s data — and that means we won’t be seeing a Dryft download in any app store. Instead, Mardsen is taking the same route as he did with Swype, and is planning to license Dryft for use on Windows Phone, Android and iOS. Plus, developers will be able to integrate Dryft in individual apps thanks to a forthcoming SDK. Want to see Dryft in action? A video awaits after the break.

Filed under: Tablets, Software

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Source: Dryft