Nuance has just recently acquired Swype for $100 million, the text predictive software activated by swiping from letter to letter. Shipping on practically half the Android devices to hit the market, Swype has certainly made an impression with its vast user-base and amount of followers (me being one of them).
There is no word on Nuance changing the current course of Swype’s future, but one can only think Swype is headed to even more exposure beyond the realm of Android. For a multi-billion dollar voice recognition company, it seems very fit for them to make such a purchase. Text prediction through “shape-writing” is very quick and fluid. When paired with specialized voice-recognition technology, the future only looks better.
After viewing the possibilities and capabilities of Apple’s newly introduced “Siri” voice recognition software, Android users are bound to catch up very soon. While speaking to your phone in public may be embarrassing for some, those that do it want it to process right the first time. It is important to take into consideration those of us with heavy accents – and sometimes Android’s stock voice recognition just doesn’t cut it. The ability to learn a person’s voice will play a big part in newer software to come. Hopefully, included within future versions of Swype.
[via allthingsD]
I hope they don’t sit on it like they have ShapeWriter. I loved using ShapeWriter back in the day. When Nuance bought it they took it off the market immediately and no one has seen it since. It’s things like that, good innovative products or ideas, that make the technology evolve, and when big companies swallow those up and sit on them it really sucks for everybody (except them).