Minuum keyboard: QWERTY but minimized

A couple of month ago I was introduced to the Minuum Project – a project that claimed to revolutionize the keyboard on smart phones and tablets.

Whirlscape, the creators of Minuum had asked a simple question: “why do we put up with the way the current virtual keyboards are as they are based entirely on the historical and out-dated typewriter keys that are large and spread wide apart to avoid typing mistakes.  You wouldn’t be happy with a keyboard blocking half your desktop screen so why do you put up with that on your smart phone”

The Minuum Project has taken the concept of the traditional keyboard and has totally reinvented it to produce this:

A new keyboard that not only speeds up your typing speeds and accuracy but is also flexible enough to be moved anywhere on the device so it is out of the way and placed in a more comfortable position for you to type.

Buts that’s not all folks.

“Minuum is designed to work on just one dimension, which means typing no longer needs any surface at all”. So essentially any new devices such as Glasses, Bracelets, Watches that need any interaction can use this new keyboard.

Fast forward to June 2013 and not only has the company raised their initial $10 000 but there has been such a demand for the keyboard that they shot past the initial target 8 times over to raise $87 000 via the indiegogo crowdsourcing platform.  To date over 1.1 million people saw the teaser video below and the keyboard software had received coverage by over 150 media outlets around the world.

 

The result is that the software is coming out of the developers workshop and is now ready for the first round of beta testers as promised.  “It’s thanks to our amazing campaign supporters that we are here with our first Minuum beta,” said Will Walmsley, CEO of Whirlscape. “We’re very excited to release the Minuum keyboard to our community, who’ve been so encouraging and enthusiastic from the very start. Keeping our promise to release in June was very important to us, so the last two months have been all about working toward today.”

After waiting not-so-patiently I received my installation instructions and within minutes I have installed the Beta version of the software on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet. I have been using it for a little while now and so far I can report that the Minuum keyboard is simple to setup and takes very little room on the screen which had me worried as I have “fat fingers”. After a couple of minutes of using it I can report that the keyboard is scarily accurate! You don’t have to hit the keys dead-on and yet the keyboard is able to work out what you are trying to type. Freakingly accurate even for words that I use for the first time such as TheTechieGuy.com

I have included some screen shots of what it looks like and will post more updates the more I use the device.