A free old version of shapewriter called SHARK has been around for some years and was a big hit according to the Tablet PC sites.

When I finally got a Tablet PC, IBM got rid of it and went commercial. Will release one day, been waiting for ages and getting seriously frustrated.

Swype looks based on the same principles. Though not offering the option of alternate slide optimised keyboard layouts for fear of scaring people away/increased learning curve.

I've played with stuff like it in a demo version for winmob (SlideIT) and a free but pause/change direction per letter version (Inscribe from Ilium) on the tablet and I have to say, I think this is the way ahead.

I felt it was good enough that I'd even want it on my N810 when I just wanted to leave the keyboard shut and use it lazyly.

In fact, it would not surprise me if it was quicker than the N810 keyboard (loose screen space of course).

Also, for any complex stuff, you just taap it in instead and it does exactly what you type instead of trying to reinterpret it.

Would not use it in place of a keyboard for writing code, but it would be possible at a slower pace.

If you want to read more, just search for something like "tabletpc shark input" or just "shapewriter".

Zuber