14 DAY TRIAL // BlindType, a startup looking to improve virtual keyboards for touchscreen devices, has been acquired by Google, it announced. There were no financial details disclosed. The move should enable Google to build a significantly improved keyboard for Android devices.
"We are excited to announce that BlindType has been acquired by Google!," BlindType announced.
"We want to thank everyone for their overwhelming support and positive feedback. We know that typing on your mobile device can be a frustrating experience, which is why we've worked hard to make touch typing easier and faster than ever - the way it should be," it continued.
"We're excited to join Google, and look forward to the great opportunities for mobile innovation that lie ahead," it added.
BlindType's technology is much more forgiving about the keys pressed and can predict what the users were typing, even in the most extreme of situations.
Even if all the key presses are wrong, BlindType, in many cases, will be able to determine the word you were trying to type.
It does this by looking at your finger's movement and the keys around the one you actually pressed. It then uses a predictive technology to determine the most likely word you were trying to spell.
The name of the company comes from the notion that BlindType would enable you to type on your phone or tablet without looking at the screen.
The technology looks good on paper and in the demos, however, there is no actual product for people to test, nothing has been released yet.
It looks like Google was so impressed with what the company had built so far, that it acquired them outright.
Of course, it may still be a while before anything materializes from this acquisition, but it shouldn't be much of a surprise if Android will get a vastly improved virtual keyboard based on BlindType technology sometime next year.