1. ToniCipriani's Avatar
    Microsoft is acquiring popular keyboard app SwiftKey for $250 million: Report | MobileSyrup.com

    I thought I read somewhere that the BlackBerry Keyboard is actually a licensed modified SwiftKey one. Wonder if anything would happen to that licensing agreement.
    Last edited by ToniCipriani; 02-02-16 at 08:31 PM.
    02-02-16 07:54 PM
  2. howarmat's Avatar
    BB are now paying the MS tax 2 times over.....running android and now the swiftkey license they have lol
    techvisor likes this.
    02-02-16 08:05 PM
  3. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    Yes, the BB10 keyboard is built on the licensed SwiftKey prediction engine. The license won't change for whatever the duration is of BB's license, but once that expires, it's possible that there could be changes, or renegotiations, etc. That's the cost of not owning your own IP.
    paulbbp and techvisor like this.
    02-02-16 08:19 PM
  4. AnimalPak200's Avatar
    Yes, the BB10 keyboard is built on the licensed SwiftKey prediction engine. The license won't change for whatever the duration is of BB's license, but once that expires, it's possible that there could be changes, or renegotiations, etc. That's the cost of not owning your own IP.
    Surely they must have recently negotiated a license for the Priv/Android. Hope they didn't just say 'for the Priv'.

    Posted via CB10
    anon(8908445) likes this.
    02-02-16 08:34 PM
  5. BCITMike's Avatar
    BB are now paying the MS tax 2 times over.....running android and now the swiftkey license they have lol
    What is known about the MS tax BlackBerry is paying? I thought they had cross licensing deal so it was minimal, and that most of the licensing was up front costs, not perpetual.

    Posted via CB10
    02-02-16 10:09 PM
  6. howarmat's Avatar
    What is known about the MS tax BlackBerry is paying? I thought they had cross licensing deal so it was minimal, and that most of the licensing was up front costs, not perpetual.

    Posted via CB10
    that might be true and no money is actually exchanged but that would mean that BB is not getting $$$ from MS then as well.

    But as far as I know this applies to BB somehow although BB was probably already paying it because of there BB10 and BBOS devices.
    Why Microsoft Makes $5 to $15 From Every Android Device Sold

    and now they MS will also get money from the swiftkey purchase
    02-02-16 10:21 PM
  7. BeautyEh's Avatar
    Yes, the BB10 keyboard is built on the licensed SwiftKey prediction engine. The license won't change for whatever the duration is of BB's license, but once that expires, it's possible that there could be changes, or renegotiations, etc. That's the cost of not owning your own IP.
    Troy where you been man!!! :-)

    Posted via CB10
    02-03-16 01:15 AM
  8. byex's Avatar
    Installed swiftkey on an android phone once. The disclaimer is scary.
    Makes you wonder what's going on with the licensed swiftkey engine on BB10 phones.

    Wonder if BlackBerry even considered this acquisition.

    Posted via CB10
    02-03-16 11:49 AM
  9. nuff_said's Avatar
    Installed swiftkey on an android phone once. The disclaimer is scary.
    Makes you wonder what's going on with the licensed swiftkey engine on BB10 phones.

    Wonder if BlackBerry even considered this acquisition.

    Posted via CB10
    BlackBerry doesn't make non-enterprise acquisitions related to privacy and security. Such a shame as I'm sure there has been ample opportunity for them to buy start ups and businesses
    02-03-16 12:11 PM
  10. sentimentGX4's Avatar
    $250 million doesn't sound too pricey. Maybe BBRY should have tried to buy Swiftkey, instead.
    02-03-16 12:26 PM
  11. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    Doesn't sound like Microsoft was really after the keyboard....

    Code:
     it’s likely the company is more interested in SwiftKey’s recent research into artificial intelligence, rather than the actual app.
    Which might explain why SwiftKey was worth so much too them.

    Not sure how BlackBerry's research into AI is going.
    parabola and techvisor like this.
    02-03-16 01:18 PM
  12. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    Installed swiftkey on an android phone once. The disclaimer is scary.
    Makes you wonder what's going on with the licensed swiftkey engine on BB10 phones.
    The excellent word prediction relies on advanced AI that obviously can't run on the phone itself. And that means there is external processing, which means that what you type has to go to SwiftKey's servers for processing. All of the better prediction engines work this way (and is why the ones that don't aren't all that great).
    techvisor and jope28 like this.
    02-03-16 01:50 PM
  13. mad_mdx's Avatar
    The word prediction might be licensed from Swiftkey but who here knows if that hasn't changed along the way? I recall a steep change in word predictions pattern on my z30 when I upgraded software at some point.
    02-03-16 04:27 PM
  14. Prem WatsApp's Avatar
    Mmmhhh, yeah... what will that mean for BBRY?

    :-D

    �   There's a Crack in the Berry right now...   �
    02-03-16 04:31 PM
  15. ubizmo's Avatar
    The excellent word prediction relies on advanced AI that obviously can't run on the phone itself. And that means there is external processing, which means that what you type has to go to SwiftKey's servers for processing. All of the better prediction engines work this way (and is why the ones that don't aren't all that great).
    This suggests that word prediction wouldn't work in airplane mode, but that's not the case. Unless it periodically uploads a bunch of user data and then downloads refreshed prediction rules. Interesting.
    02-03-16 04:55 PM
  16. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    When you have a data connection, it's uploading your data and downloading prediction info. When you don't have data, it has to rely on cached data, which is better than nothing, but not as good as what you get when you're online, especially when you leave your "familiar" words and phrases that are cached.
    ubizmo and techvisor like this.
    02-03-16 05:06 PM
  17. deadcowboy's Avatar
    When you have a data connection, it's uploading your data and downloading prediction info. When you don't have data, it has to rely on cached data, which is better than nothing, but not as good as what you get when you're online, especially when you leave your "familiar" words and phrases that are cached.
    i'm betting it relies on cached data no matter if you have network or not. there's no way predictions could be as instantaneous as they are if every prediction was pulled down from a server. performance is basically the same on network or in airplane mode.

    bbry should have purchased swiftkey when they had the chance

    Posted via CB10
    byex and dejanh like this.
    02-03-16 06:28 PM
  18. BCITMike's Avatar
    I believe Troy is incorrect on the BB10 keyboard and prediction using Swiftkey server for processing. I don't remember where I read/heard, but this was something that made BB10 awesome from the get go, but also why RAM requirements were so high. It's not hard to have common phrases in addition to dictionary, but good feature when done right, and for a security minded phone.
    byex likes this.
    02-03-16 09:59 PM
  19. AnimalPak200's Avatar
    I believe Troy is incorrect on the BB10 keyboard and prediction using Swiftkey server for processing. I don't remember where I read/heard, but this was something that made BB10 awesome from the get go, but also why RAM requirements were so high. It's not hard to have common phrases in addition to dictionary, but good feature when done right, and for a security minded phone.
    Yeah, I think what commonly relies on server side processing is speech recognition.

    Basically, when deciding whether to rely on local processing or server side processing, you need to see whether the increased power consumption on the local processor is greater or less than that of packaging it, transmitting, receiving and parsing it.

    For something like speech or image recognition, which (happens infrequently and) incurs a large processing cost when compared to the cost of transmission, server side processing makes sense.

    For real-time keyboard prediction? Too small a task, and too frequent. Maybe I could see the use of periodic server side batch process dictionary optimization, but... not as an integral part of its suggestion mechanism.
    02-04-16 05:37 AM
  20. byex's Avatar
    When you have a data connection, it's uploading your data and downloading prediction info. When you don't have data, it has to rely on cached data, which is better than nothing, but not as good as what you get when you're online, especially when you leave your "familiar" words and phrases that are cached.
    I see no difference on BB10 with or without data connection. Can turn all the radios off and it's just as quick and predictive as if I had the radios on. All my learnt words and addition to dictionary are all there.

    I would think that its all locally processed on the phone.

    Posted via CB10
    Last edited by byex; 02-04-16 at 08:03 AM.
    02-04-16 07:13 AM
  21. DenverRalphy's Avatar
    Swiftkey syncs data once a day or once a week (the default option is daily), not a persistent sync. As well it's an opt-in feature, so if you have it disabled then there's no syncing with Swiftkey's servers at all.
    Laura Knotek likes this.
    02-04-16 08:15 AM
  22. ubizmo's Avatar
    I see no difference on BB10 with or without data connection. Can turn all the radios off and it's just as quick and predictive as if I had the radios on. All my learnt words and addition to dictionary are all there.

    I would think that its all locally processed on the phone.
    I think the question is whether the BB10 and/or SwiftKey software periodically uploads data to a server, where it is merged into a database for the user to update the prediction patterns, which are then downloaded back to the device. Or does it all happen on the device?

    I know that Swype periodically uploads user data, but this is mainly to back up the user dictionary. So if you switch to another phone, you log into your Swype account and get your personal dictionary back. Swype does prediction too, but it's nothing special. Personally, I find that when I'm using Swype or SwiftKey Flow I don't use word prediction anyway, because it interrupts the flow of the gesture typing. I only use predictions when I'm tap-typing, which is seldom (except, of course, on BB10, where there's no other option).
    Dunt Dunt Dunt likes this.
    02-04-16 08:19 AM
  23. byex's Avatar
    I think the question is whether the BB10 and/or SwiftKey software periodically uploads data to a server, where it is merged into a database for the user to update the prediction patterns, which are then downloaded back to the device. Or does it all happen on the device?

    I know that Swype periodically uploads user data, but this is mainly to back up the user dictionary. So if you switch to another phone, you log into your Swype account and get your personal dictionary back. Swype does prediction too, but it's nothing special. Personally, I find that when I'm using Swype or SwiftKey Flow I don't use word prediction anyway, because it interrupts the flow of the gesture typing. I only use predictions when I'm tap-typing, which is seldom (except, of course, on BB10, where there's no other option).
    It could well be that the way swiftkey is implemented in BB10 phones is different than the android implementation.

    Unless someone who has inside knowledge of swiftkey and BB10 relationship we will never know. We can only assume it's like android.

    Posted via CB10
    02-04-16 10:15 AM
  24. crucial bbq's Avatar
    Doesn't sound like Microsoft was really after the keyboard....

    Code:
     it’s likely the company is more interested in SwiftKey’s recent research into artificial intelligence, rather than the actual app.
    Which might explain why SwiftKey was worth so much too them.

    Not sure how BlackBerry's research into AI is going.
    Well, QNX is doing the autonomous car...
    02-04-16 02:13 PM
  25. Ment's Avatar
    Doesn't sound like Microsoft was really after the keyboard....

    Code:
     it�s likely the company is more interested in SwiftKey�s recent research into artificial intelligence, rather than the actual app.
    Which might explain why SwiftKey was worth so much too them.

    Not sure how BlackBerry's research into AI is going.
    Yes MS is interesting in tech behind the new prediction engine in SwiftKey Neural Alpha

    SwiftKey Neural Alpha is an experimental keyboard app that uses artificial neural networks to predict and correct your typing.

    ** Please note - keyboard currently supports English (US) only and is an early-stage alpha **

    ** To use our main app, please search for SwiftKey Keyboard on Google Play **

    The app leverages the power of artificial intelligence to offer you smarter and more meaningful suggestions in the context of what you�re writing. Neural networks are a subfield of artificial intelligence inspired by the structure and operation of the human brain.
    It may eventually make it into the Microsoft Flow keyboard but its more for Cortana and other related AI ventures.
    02-04-16 02:23 PM
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