{"id":284816,"date":"2014-04-04T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T16:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/?p=284816"},"modified":"2016-11-28T10:21:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T18:21:44","slug":"microsoft-brings-worlds-fastest-texting-windows-phone-8-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/blog\/microsoft-brings-worlds-fastest-texting-windows-phone-8-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Brings World\u2019s Fastest Texting to Windows Phone 8.1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gaurav Sharma appeared relaxed but focused in his purple hoodie on January 16, 2014. Less than 20 seconds later, Sharma, a 15-year-old from Lakeside High School in Seattle, found himself the owner of a Guinness World Record\u00ae for fastest text message using a touch-screen mobile phone.<\/p>\n

\"Gaurav

Gaurav Sharma displays the Guinness World Records certificate that declares him the world’s fastest texter.<\/p><\/div>\n

Word Flow with shape writing, the same Microsoft Research technology that powered Sharma\u2019s record-setting effort, soon will be available for mobile-phone users as a key feature in the just-announced Windows Phone 8.1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sharma\u2019s time of 18.44 seconds to create a challenging, 25-word text message is quite a marvel. In three-quarters of a second less than it took sprinter Usain Bolt to set the world record in the 200 meters in the 2009 World Championships, Sharma whipped through:<\/p>\n

The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.<\/em><\/p>\n

That passage\u2014precisely 160 characters long\u2014is a handful to type, but not if you\u2019re using Word Flow\u2014an earlier version of which had been used to set the previous text-speed record.<\/p>\n

The path toward Sharma\u2019s record-setting achievement began with a challenge. Peter Lee<\/a>, Microsoft corporate vice president and the head of Microsoft Research, had been urging his researchers to demonstrate the kinds of unlikely results that can come from really smart people taking really big risks. The idea was to explore something technically amazing, without thought of publication or transferring the technology into a product, but it had to be measurable.<\/p>\n

Given the prevalence of texting in our lives, Johnson Apacible (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, research manager, and Tim Paek<\/a>, senior researcher, proposed creating a touchscreen keyboard that would enable users to text \u201cblindly\u201d\u2014without having to look at the screen. Normally, texting using a touchscreen requires the user\u2019s full visual attention, but at times, that can be inconvenient, impolite, and even illegal. To make the proposal measurable, Apacible suggested trying to break the Guinness world record for fastest blindfolded texting, as well as the more general record: fastest texting on a touchscreen device.<\/p>\n

How, though, do you set a world record for fastest blindfolded texting?<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole approach,\u201d Paek says, \u201cis all about promoting muscle memory and making shape writing robust to mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is shape writing?<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of tapping every single letter,\u201d Paek explains, \u201cyou\u2019re drawing a line that connects all the letters of the word you\u2019re trying to write. When you continuously draw that line, you are defining a shape. Eventually, you stop thinking about the letters altogether and develop muscle memory for that shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds simple enough, but once you examine the details, things get a bit more complicated.<\/p>\n

For one thing, instead of connecting letters, they developed a new type of QWERTY keyboard with Microsoft Research colleague Bongshin Lee<\/a>, one in which the letter keys are combined into groups that provide larger target areas than a traditional keyboard with 26 distinct letter keys.<\/p>\n

\u201cBongshin,\u201d Paek says, \u201cwas instrumental in coming up with the grouping design that allowed us to use muscle memory for connecting groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, shapes connecting groups must be recognized by a software tool, known as a decoder, to identify the words they signify. For that, the team turned to another colleague, Asela Gunawardana<\/a>, affectionately nicknamed Zilla.<\/p>\n

\"Grouped-key\"

Grouped-key layout of a research prototype for blind texting.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAccuracy is a problem,\u201d Paek says, \u201cbecause every group has several letters. We needed to come up with a way of decoding ambiguity accurately, and that\u2019s a hard technical challenge. Fortunately, we had Zilla. He came up with a really clever approach for breaking this problem down.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a combination of an effective user interface and machine-learning algorithms in hand, the researchers set their sights on the texting world record.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed a goal to go after,\u201d Apacible says, \u201csomething that\u2019s easy to measure. Can you do it or not? It\u2019s hard to measure anything in terms of input, so we asked: \u2018What\u2019s measurable here? Let\u2019s go after the world record.\u201d<\/p>\n

That they achieved\u2014twice\u2014a mere seven months into the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came up with an extremely ambitious deadline,\u201d Apacible explains, \u201cand just went to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, they decided to pursue the blindfolded texting record. That might seem an odd choice, but blindfolded texting is rather common in texting competitions, of which there are several, and the team had its reasons.<\/p>\n

\"Word

Researchers and engineers who collaborated to produce the Word Flow feature for Windows Phone 8.1, from left: (front row) Johnson Apacible and Woon Kiat Wong, (second row) Tim Paek and Vishwas Kulkarni, (third row) Asela Gunawardana and Bongshin Lee, (fourth row) Dmitry Rudchenko and Eric Badger, (fifth row) Mark Encarnaci\u00f3n and Partha Sundararajan, and (back row) Yutaka Suzue.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe existing record didn\u2019t say \u2018texting while blindfolded on a mini-QWERTY keyboard,\u2019\u201d Paek says. \u201cIt just said \u2018on a mobile device.\u2019 Our approach was to use a touchscreen to break it. \u201cSomeone might think: \u2018Why would you use a touchscreen? Doesn\u2019t that make it harder?\u2019 For us, it makes it easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 24, 2013, the task was to produce, blindfolded and as quickly as possible, the same text on which Sharma later was tested. The previous blindfolded record had been 45.09 seconds, but Mark Encarnaci\u00f3n, a senior developer on the team, swiped the defined text in a mere 25.90 seconds\u2014a time that also improved on the fastest previous sighted<\/em> text.<\/p>\n

Then, the same day, he proceeded to smash the mark for fastest sighted texting, completing the text in 20.53 seconds, more than five seconds faster than the previous record of 25.94.<\/p>\n

The 20.53 time was the mark broken by Sharma, and, as a record holder for nine months, Encarnaci\u00f3n knows the feeling well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was surreal,\u201d he recalls of his<\/em> record-setting performance. \u201cThe team had been working hard on the project for months, all leading up to that morning, and it didn\u2019t sink in right away that we had really done it, that we set two new world records!\u201d<\/p>\n

And not only that\u2014the team also had established a new Guinness record category<\/em>: blindfolded texting on a touchscreen device.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said: \u2018That\u2019s really interesting,\u2019\u201d Paek says. \u201c\u2018You did something we didn\u2019t expect at all, so we\u2019ll just define a new category for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Atilla

Atilla Gunal<\/p><\/div>\n

That confirmation delivered immense satisfaction to the record-breaking Microsoft Research team. Atilla Gunal, Vishwas Kulkarni, and Encarnaci\u00f3n each took the lead in particular engineering aspects of the project, and they received able assistance from Yutaka Suzue, Woon Kiat Wong, and Paul Hsu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Records are great, but having your work incorporated into a product that will delight millions is even more exhilarating. The researchers soon partnered with the phone unit\u2019s Eric Badger, Lynn Dai, Dmitry Rudchenko, and Partha Sundararajan to apply some of their techniques.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been superb collaborators,\u201d Paek says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working with them for quite a while. They are very forward-thinking, and they wanted to make sure that whatever innovations we came up with in research could be integrated into their product plans. They have always been that way. I think that whole team should be commended for their openness to research, for their collaboration, and for bringing this technology to Windows Phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The benefits of that collaboration soon will be realized by teens, tweeters, and thick-thumbed texters the world over, some of whom, no doubt, will set their sights on Gaurav Sharma\u2019s record. Game on!<\/p>\n

Learn more<\/strong><\/p>\n