It's summer, and "SHARKs" are circling!!

Now, my all-cap of the word "SHARK" is not meant to shout or sensationalize- but to communicate the proper name of a new technology called ShortHand-Aided Rapid Keyboarding.

IBM scientist Shumin Zhai invented the technology,which places a small grid on a touch-sensitive screen. Like, say, a BlackBerry.

To write a sentence, say, you would place your stylus on the first letter of the word and then drag the stylus to draw a line through the alphabet cluster. You would need to have your stylus touch every letter in the word.

When you lift up the stylus after you touch the last letter in the word, SHARK figures out the word you mean, and will display the word on screen.

The San Jose (Cal.) Mercury-News' Mike Langberg tried SHARK, and said the solution gave him the correct word more than 90 percent of the time. In most other instances, the correct word appeared either second or third on the list of choices.

There's no word if and when SHARK will be released, but given that it has a key IBM researcher behind it (and the demo is posted on the IBM website) I wouldn't bet on this solution being mothballed.