Simplified Touchscreen Typing

Minuum is a tiny, one-dimensional keyboard that frees up screen space while allowing fast, accurate typing.
Current technology assumes that sticking a full typewriter into a touchscreen device is the best way to enter text, giving us keyboards that are error-prone and cover up half the usable screen space (or more) on most smartphones and tablets.

Minuum, on the other hand, eliminates the visual clutter of archaic mobile keyboards by adapting the keyboard to a single dimension. What enables this minimalism is our specialized auto-correction algorithm that allows highly imprecise typing. This algorithm interprets in real time the difference between what you type and what you mean, getting it right even if you miss every single letter.

Features at a Glance

Platforms Supported

Google Android currently provides the most popular ecosystem that allows alternative virtual keyboards, so we will initially develop Minuum for availability to you through the Google Play Store. Since Apple’s restrictions on iOS do not allow you to replace the default keyboard, we will make a Minuum version for iOS app developers to include in their software. Check out our developer support.

We can also help others who want to put Minuum on touchscreen devices using other operating systems (for example, Windows Phone, BlackBerry). Interested? Let us know.

Be among the first to try the keyboard, by supporting the Minuum project.

Going Beyond Your Touchscreen

The Minuum project seeks to bring simplified, improved typing to mobile devices and to the future of wearable computing.

From watches to glasses, and everything in between, wearable computing is a rapidly growing field, with unlimited options to explore. Minuum is simply a continuum of letters, laid out in a row (we call it “one-dimensional” because it’s based on one row of keys). This simplified keyboard arrangement means you can type without needing complex sensors or flat surfaces. If there is a place where you can measure one dimension of user input, Minuum will let you type there. This means being able to type using wearable technology, with game controllers, and practically anywhere else.

In fact, with Minuum you can type without any surface at all, simply by measuring the orientation of hand gestures in the air. This can be done in several ways, such as with an accelerometer/gyroscope in a ring, watch, armband, or handheld device, or with a camera capturing the hand from something like a Kinect, Leap Motion Controller, or Google glasses.

With only one dimension to measure, these kinds of typing systems are easy to make—and easy to use, even in noisy and constrained sensing environments.

Prototyping and the Wearable Development Kit (WDK)

We have been prototyping and developing each of these Minuum applications mentioned above. If you are a developer of wearable tech devices, we’d love to hear from you about how you’d like people to type with your device.

If we’re funded, you’ll be able to use an open Minuum wearable development kit (WDK) in early 2014. This will allow anyone—even non-specialists—to incorporate typing into everyday things. The Minuum project involves applying our virtual keyboard algorithms to other typing needs beyond touchscreens. Soon, you’ll be able to type quickly and accurately using a variety of wearable devices. Many of these haven’t been imagined yet, and our WDK will help you build those devices you dream of. Want to create a sweater that types or put a keyboard in your iPhone case? Using our WDK you’ll be able to connect to Android, iOS, Mac, or windows platforms and send the text you want.

We also want to tailor our technology to create the best possible keyboard for people of all ages with motor, visual, or cognitive impairments. The extensibility of our developer library and wearable development kit will allow us to work with partners such as MyVoice to tailor our technology to be accessible by all.

Development Roadmap

We have prototyped a Minuum app for iOS and have pivoted to developing an Android app. (See Platform Support and Apple’s iOS app restrictions.) Right now we have a working prototype of the Android app. Here is our timeline:

As you can see, by supporting us you get access to our beta release at least six months before everyone else. Check out our crowdfunding campaign.

Intellectual Property

On the intellectual property (IP) front, we have been developing a patent portfolio to protect our IP relating to the following: text entry methods, alphabet layout, disambiguation algorithm, and interface design.