Exideas says MessagEase uses an ingenuous yet intuitive system of taps and slides for entering full text-taps for most frequent letters and slides for the rest, making its keyboard compact but with keys larger and easier to target than the soft QWERTY keys. Instead, the MessagEase Onscreen Keyboard uses 9 keys, yet it enables entry of all letters, numbers and special characters. It also includes Alt and Ctrl keys, function keys, all cursor navigation commands, as well as keys for common editing functions (Cut, Copy, Paste, etc).

According to Exideas, the MessagEase Onscreen Keyboard can be resized, reshaped into vertical, horizontal or square shape, or made transparent to fit any need. Smaller keyboards minimize the real estate occupied and optimize the stylus movement, while larger keys can be used for text entry with even gloved fingers or for wearable computers. The transparent keyboard lets you see the text you type behind it, further optimizing the use of the screen area.

MessagEase technology is also available for PDAs and is applicable to cell phones (demo available today), TV remote controls, watches, car navigation systems, or any small device that cannot accommodate a ten-finger QWERTY keyboard.

The software supports Windows and Windows Mobile based devices.

A paper about the technology, presented at the Sixth International Conference of Multimodal Interface, ICMI-03, is available here (PDF download).