SwiftKey keyboard is greatly loved by many, and many of us here at Android and Me use it daily. And it’s about to get better with a big update that launched today.
SwiftKey Neural Alpha was an alpha branch of SwiftKey that utilized neural network technology to improve word prediction, inspired by the structure of the human brain. It really worked, too.
The regular SwiftKey keyboard is now being updated with the same neural networks, though no longer in alpha, for everyone using US English or UK English. More languages will be getting the neural net treatment soon.
Head over to the Play Store to update the app and let us know how you like the new prediction engine!
Show Press Release
San Francisco, CA, September 15, 2016 – Today leading keyboard app company SwiftKey, is bringing to market the world’s first smartphone keyboard that uses an artificial neural network to predict and correct language. In the most significant update to its core technology since launching flagship app SwiftKey Keyboard for Android in 2010, the completely rebuilt prediction engine will offer users smarter, more accurate and more human predictions, making it faster and easier to type than ever before. The app is available to download for free from Google Play today.
Neural network technology is a subfield of artificial intelligence inspired by the structure and operation of the human brain. SwiftKey was the first to implement this technology on a smartphone keyboard, originally debuting on SwiftKey Neural Alpha in October 2015.
SwiftKey Product Manager, Ben Leavett, said, “This next generation of our prediction engine inserts some more human elements into SwiftKey’s understanding of what you type. SwiftKey now offers the most accurate predictions and autocorrection to date thanks to an improved grasp of context and the ability to better understand the similarity between interchangeable words. This is just the beginning of our exploration of neural networks for touchscreen keyboards, but we’re incredibly excited about the potential this new technology has for the years to come.”
With this update SwiftKey is now able to meaningfully capture the relationship and similarity between words. For example, having previously seen the phrase “Let’s meet at the airport”, the technology is able to infer that “office” or “hotel” are similar words which could also be appropriate predictions in place of “airport”. Further, it understands that “Let’s meet at the airport” has a similar sentence structure to “Let’s chat at the office”. This intelligence allows SwiftKey to offer you the most appropriate prediction or autocorrection based on the sentence being typed.
SwiftKey Keyboard replaces a mobile device’s keyboard with one that understands language and learns your personal writing style. These insights improve typing with more accurate autocorrect, prediction of your next word and other innovations like the ability for multilingual users to type in up to three languages simultaneously. SwiftKey’s original technology revolutionized touchscreen typing with the introduction of a row of next-word predictions – a feature that has since become the industry standard.
SwiftKey Keyboard for Android, powered by neural networks, is available to update to or download today for free in US English and UK English, with more languages to follow soon.
Source :
Androidandme