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A company called Swype has created a fantastic new way of creating text input.

Instead of touching keys by lifting your finger or stylus from key to key, you trace a path from each letter to the next in what you’re writing.  The software that runs the keyboard then figures out what you said.

I could try to describe it further, but why not just watch the video?

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/700774

More on the company can be found at its website:

http://www.swypeinc.com

For a few hundred dollars the Apple iPhone provides a multi-touch display you can control by touch and the Nintendo Wii allows you to control video games from a distance by gesturing with a wand like remote control. What if you could combine the multi touch gestures of the iPhone with the midair gestures of the Wii for $39.99?

Sure, Steven Spielberg showed such a device in the movie Minority Report (see video), but researcher Johnny Lee has created a super cheap system that works by buying the Nintendo Wii’s remote and using it’s infrared light sensing abilities:

He’s also used the Wii remote to make a low cost multi-point whiteboard and a head tracking virtual reality display, all of which you can see demonstrated in his speech at TED :

You can examine a variety of his hacks, and download free software to make your own input devices, at his website. Mr. Lee has also developed a number of other interesting projects, including a $14 steady cam and a novel way to win a paintball match.