While autocorrect accounts to some truly hilarious text fails the amount of times it does get things right is truly amazing and the technology behind it is even cooler. Most of the big name tech companies keep their software under wraps but the company Nuance was willing to talk to Slate Magazine and filled them in on how the spell check magic happens.
Nuance software company is responsible for one of the oldest and most popular text-entry systems - T9 (throwback to those flip phones). Each company has customized this system so it might not carry the same branding but a variation of it has been bundled with billions of phones.
The earliest version of was a way to enter a text message using a 9-digit numeric keypad, but flash forward and phones can automatically correct input and recognize handwriting. So how does it all work? The algorithm behind auto-correction works the same as a word processors spell checker. While you are typing the software is checking each word against its built-in dictionary. Would be pretty difficult for our human editors but for a computer it happens at warp speed.
But what happens when your computer editor can’t find a match? That’s right, it just makes it up! Kinda. It tries to predict what you were trying to say. Unfortunately this “helpfulness” can create some hilarious epic fails and wild misunderstandings!
