It seems incredible to believe that of all the people on the planet, Stephen Hawking’s communication system has never used the sort of predictive typing found in modern smartphones, or even a backspace key. Now it does, via a partnership between Intel and Swiftkey.

Hawking, who suffers from an advanced stage of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), communicates entirely through a text-based communication system controlled by his facial muscles. Up until now, the means of input has been a continually scrolling cursor that cycles through the letters of the alphabet, which Hawking “selected” by twitching a muscle in his cheek. That equated to about one or two words per minute, according to Intel chief technical officer Justin Rattner, in 2013. 

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