Typewise taps 1m to build an offline next-word prediction-engine [Natasha Lomas @TechCrunch]

While really handy, recommendation systems for (next) word prediction are quite a niche, and I am not sure if there has ever been a research paper on this topic. Typewise is a start-up that aims at competing with Google, and that wants to offer next-word recommendations to third party software developers and individual users. They received 1 million Euros in Seed Funding according to TechCrunch.

Swiss keyboard startup Typewise has bagged a $1 million seed round to build out a typo-busting, ‘privacy-safe’ next word prediction engine designed to run entirely offline. No cloud connectivity, no data mining risk is the basic idea.

They also intend the tech to work on text inputs made on any device, be it a smartphone or desktop, a wearable, VR — or something weirder that Elon Musk  might want to plug into your brain in future.

For now they’ve got a smartphone keyboard app that’s had around 250,000 downloads — with some 65,000 active users at this point.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/23/typewise-taps-1m-to-build-an-offline-next-word-prediction-engine/