A couple of days ago, French company 3qubits unveiled their unique take on what they imagined touchscreen keyboards of the future would look like. Starting with the notion that a full QWERTY layout could never fit properly on a handheld touchscreen device, they set about  creating something entirely different. What they came up with is 8pen, which was released to the Android Market moments ago.

It's pretty crazy. Not quite as crazy as Dasher (free on Android), but indisputably one of the more radical input methods we've seen on Android so far. Will it oust Swype as the go-to slide-type keyboard? We're not so sure. After all, the gesture it takes to write one letter with 8pen is often as long as it takes to write whole words with Swype. However, as with anything this drastically different, there is a steep learning curve to be conquered and we can see 8pen gaining some ardent followers.

Check out the official video at the link below for a more thorough demonstration and explanation of 8pen's capabilities.

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8pen is available for £0.99 in the marketplace for Android 1.6+ devices.

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Source: reddit

Official demo video: The 8pen