After her Opening Ceremonies speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent some time touring the Expo, and chose ETAOI Systems out of 100s of companies to come and take a look at the 5-TILES Keyboard. From left: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, ETAOI Systems CEO Michał Kubacki, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and ETAOI Systems CFO Piotr Pieczyński. Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

Warsaw, Poland – August 02, 2014

The unique 5-TILES layout was the brainwave of CEO Michal Kubacki in early 2011, when he became increasingly frustrated by the system keyboard while writing on his phone.

ETAOI Systems was founded in June 2011, when Piotr Pieczynski and Fabio Carta came on board as CFO & CTO respectively.

We started the patent application process and made our first sale on the Google Play store later that summer.

After his Opening Ceremonies speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent some time touring the Expo, and chose ETAOI Systems out of 100s of companies to come and take a look at the 5-TILES Keyboard. From left: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, ETAOI Systems CEO Michał Kubacki, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and ETAOI Systems CFO Piotr Pieczyński. Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

The business has followed a typical lean start-up development path with an early “MVP” Android prototype, followed by rapid iterations to introduce new functionality and fine-tune the design.

The current version of the keyboard was released in 2013, based on the feedback of over 800 active early users and beta-testers.

We have achieved over 15,000 downloads so far, entirely through word-of-mouth and a small degree of press exposure.

The 5-TILES keyboard has been designed specifically for touch-screen devices, smart watches, wearable computers, and the Internet of Things. Taking up 70% less of the screen than current keyboards, users type using sequences across 5 keys, based on the alphabet, optimised for the most frequently occurring letters. 5-TILES is super compact, comfortably sized for all fingers, and extremely fast. 5-TILES is a radical departure from the QWERTY system, which was designed to prevent mechanical keys from jamming - ready to take us into the next 150 years. Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

The team was rounded out in the summer of 2013 with the arrival of Margaret Gold as CMO, bringing over a decade of experience in developing and commercialising technology products to the team.

The next important milestone was achieved in October 2013, when 5-TILES was installed on the I’M Watch, becoming the first functional keyboard on a smart watch.

The 5-TILES keyboard has an alphabet-based layout. The most common letters and the space key are underlined, and are typed with a single tap. Other letters are typed with a sliding motion across the tiles, starting from the tile where they are written. To know where to slide to, look at the order of the letter in the row. For example, the letter ‘F’ starts on the green tile, and slides back to the first key in the row: blue. The letter ‘I’ is a single tap on green. The letter “J” is written last, so it’s a slide from the green tile to the last tile in the row: red. Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

This helped us to secure second place at the Droidcon UK 2013 Democamp, win a stand at both Mobile World Congress and CeBIT, be profiled at the UCL Advances AppLab launch, and reach the finals of the UKTI’s SMART UK competition in Barcelona at MWC.

Thanks to the higher profile awarded us through these competitions, we have been getting both press interest and the interest of companies such as Sony, Nokia, and Firefox OS.

The 5-TILES being used in real life situations on a range of devices, from smartphones to smartwatch. Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

We are now poised to enter a high-growth phase of licensing partnerships and word-of-mouth marketing, but need to raise our first round of funding in order to do so.

Mobile Veteran Christian Lindholm (Nokia, Fjord, Yahoo Mobile) to Guide Startup 5-TILES as Investor and Advisor

Christian Lindholm helping to make 5-TILES the first choice keyboard for mobile devices and wearables.

We’re thrilled to announce that mobile industry veteran Christian Lindholm will take the role as Investor and Advisor to 5-TILES this summer, to help guide this award-winning startup to become the leading choice of keyboard for any mobile device or wearable product.

Lindholm is the CEO and Co-Founder of Koru, a wearable’s operating system company based in Finland.

Christian Lindholm Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

5-TILES is an alternative touch-screen keyboard, built for Android and available on Google Play.

Passionate about the transformative power of mobile devices and wearables, Lindholm’s interest and investment with 5-TILES is to progress a paradigm shift toward Intimate Computing, and a radical new approach to our text entry systems across all our devices.

“We are on a long journey of transformation, disruption and creation. It is a journey where we will meet luck and serendipity. I cannot imagine anything more exciting to work on,” he said.

ETAOI Systems team. From left: CMO Margaret Gold, CTO Fabio Carta, CEO Michał Kubacki, CFO Piotr Pieczyński. Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

As one of the digital and mobile design industry’s true gurus, Lindholm was nicknamed “the godfather of mobile phone users” by Finland’s leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

He is the inventor of the Navi key, a user interface that was featured on many early Nokia phones.

Based on industry figures from that time, it is likely that 7% of the human population used his Navi invention to make their first mobile calls.

He has also held roles as Chief Innovation Officer at Fjord (acquired by Accenture in May 2013) and was head of Yahoo’s mobile product team.

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

“5-TILES is a bold idea, and is the most powerful one-handed touch keyboard I have seen. They have a great team of inventors and innovators and I can see they have the elements needed to succeed, including, the willingness to push forward, transform, simplify and perfect.”, Lindholm said about 5-TILES.

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

5-TILES CEO Michal Kubacki is honoured by Lindholm’s coming on board as an Investor and Advisor, and sees it as positive testimony regarding the brave invention he, and the team, have created to disrupt how we use keyboards on mobile devices and wearables.

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

“Christian understands our vision for helping the world move on from an outdated keyboard,” said Kubacki.
“We don’t live in a world of physical buttons anymore and 5-TILES can deliver the space, range and speed we need.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel checks out 5-TILES at CeBIT

After her Opening Ceremonies speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel spent some time touring the Expo, and chose ETAOI Systems out of 100s of companies to come and take a look at the 5-TILES Keyboard.

CEO Michal Kubacki is showing her how it works on a tablet.

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

The Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at the Opening Ceremonies about “The Digital Society“:
“The societal changes generated by modern information and communication technologies undoubtedly face policy-makers, too, with tremendous challenges. That is why “The Digital Society” is the German Government’s chosen motto for its Science Year 2014. Our aim is to stimulate broad debate on what our digital future could and should look like. I look forward with keen anticipation to what ideas emerge from CeBIT 2014.”

PM David Cameron checks out 5-TILES at CeBIT

After his Opening Ceremonies speech, UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent some time touring the Expo, and chose ETAOI Systems out of 100s of companies to come and take a look at the 5-TILES Keyboard.

CEO Michal Kubacki is showing him how it works on a tablet.

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

The Prime Minister David Cameron spoke at the Opening Ceremonies about “a world on fast forward“:
“My mission here at CeBIT is to promote the extraordinary tech sector we have in the UK. 4 years ago, we put in place a long-term economic plan to turn our country around – and innovation is right at the heart of that plan. The UK tech scene today is dynamic. Relentlessly ambitious. Leading the way. It is our ambition to make the UK the most digital nation in the G8 and it is my mission to show the world that we’re getting there.”

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

About 5-TILES

ETAOI Systems Ltd. is the owner and developer of the patent-pending 5-TILES Keyboard, which has been designed specifically for touchscreen devices of all sizes.

The 5-TILES Keyboard takes up 70% less of the screen than QWERTY keyboards, is super compact, comfortably finger-sized, and optimised for speed.

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

The 5-TILES Keyboard is in live beta, and available for download from Google Play at tinyurl.com/fivetiles.

http://www.fivetiles.com  

Awards include:

• 2nd Place at Droidcon, October 2013

• Winner of UKTI MWC Stand Competition, February 2014

• Finalists in the Smart UK Project Competition, February 2014

• Winner of ICT KTN CeBIT Stand, March 2014

• 1st Place at TechPitch, May 2014

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

Contact

contact@etaoisystems.com  

http://etaoisystems.com  


Video
5-TILES examples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHZcXkhSQ1E#t=16  

Courtesy of  ETAOI Systems

Source: ETAOI Systems Ltd.

http://www.fivetiles.com  



ASTROMAN Magazine - 2014.07.16

Apple and IBM Forge Global Partnership to Transform Enterprise Mobility

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=1757  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2014.03.15

Keynote trends at CeBIT 2014

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=1675  


ASTROMAN Magazine – 2014.02.25

GSMA Announces Winners of the 2014 Global Mobile Awards

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=1664