February 6th - 2009

WIRED OFFICE: Communicate by tapping, “Swyping” or video messaging

Sending a text message has become a very popular way to communicate quickly and conveniently.

Sending a text message has become a very popular way to communicate quickly and conveniently. According to the latest figures from the CWTA (Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association), Canadians send 54.1 million text messages per day. Just as the number of people using text messaging continues to grow month over month, the options for creating and sending messages are also increasing.

While younger people make up the majority of the CWTA’s statistics, people of all ages are embracing the technology. However, many of the older generation just don’t “text” as fast. While sending a text message from a cell phone is relatively simple, becoming proficient on the tiny keypad takes practice.

Up until recently, there have been two basic technologies for text input -- the mechanical keyboard and predictive text available on most mobile keypads. However, the iPhone phenomenon has created a huge demand in the marketplace for touch screen devices which allow users to tap out a message with either their fingers or a stylus.

Those people who are text message challenged will be happy to learn about Swype. Swype provides a faster and easier way to input text on any screen through a new technology that could revolutionize the way users communicate. Swype was created by the co-inventor of the T9 predictive text technology which is used on over 2.5 billion mobile phones worldwide.

How it works

Early reviews of Swype indicate it is quite simple to use. Swype works with an on-screen QWERTY keyboard like you see on the tablet version of Windows and on the iPhone. But instead of tapping letters out, you press your finger or stylus on the first letter, then, without lifting it, move it to the remaining letters in the word. When the word is done, you lift. A demonstration video on the Swype Web site www.swypeinc.com shows the user spelling the word “quick” by placing the stylus on the letter q and tracing over the letters u, i, c and k. A key advantage to Swype is that you don’t need to be overly accurate. A built-in 65,000-word dictionary corrects spelling errors allowing for rapid text input. A word menu pops up if the correction is somewhat ambiguous giving you a choice of words. The correct word can be selected with a simple swipe upward.

You can capitalize words by jerking the stylus up and down or select double letters by wiggling the pen over a letter. According to Swype’s Web site, users can potentially Swype over 50 words per minute.

Video E-mail

For those who prefer face-to-face communication, video E-mail may be more to your liking. Using an application such as Eyejot, you can easily send a video E-mail to anyone. Although, you might be able to do this now by embedding video files in your E-mail, it requires some serious cutting and pasting. The free Eyejot web-driven application makes the whole process as simple as creating a text E-mail.

What’s really great about Eyejot is that there's no software to install -- the entire operation runs inside your browser. Just plug in your Webcam, click Record, and commence your show-and-tell. When you're done, choose one or more recipients. Eyejot does the rest, sending a "You've got video" notification via E-mail. When a recipient clicks the embedded Play Now button, an Eyejot Web page plays the video immediately—again, with nothing to install. Eyejot easily works with all of the popular Web browsers on Windows and Mac OS X. The only other requirement is Adobe Flash Player, but chances are it’s already installed on your computer.

Eyejot can also import E-mail addresses from a number of sources and even features built-in support for mobile devices and social networks like MySpace or Facebook. For more information or to sign up for the free service visit www.eyejot.com.

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For more information contact

Ontario Real Estate Association

Jean-Adrien Delicano

Manager, Media Relations

JeanAdrienD@orea.com

416-445-9910 ext. 246

Ontario Real Estate Association
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