A few weeks ago, I traveled over to the offices of Seattle-based Swype to get an inside look at a new technology that some believe will revolutionize the way people compose words and sentences on mobile devices. It's called "Swyping," and you're probably going to be hearing a lot more about it in the coming weeks.

The technology allows mobile phone users to run a finger -- or a stylus -- across an on-screen mobile keyboard to compose words and sentences faster than with a traditional tap. The self-funded company just announced that the Swype technology will be featured on the new Samsung Omnia II, which will debut on Verizon December 2 for $199. The multi-million dollar deal also includes an agreement to embed the Swype technology on four other phones, though CEO Mike McSherry tells TechFlash that the goal of the four-year agreement with Samsung is to "get on as many touchscreens as we can."

Swype supports 20 languages. You can get a sense for how it works in this video.

"It is faster and more effective, and more fun," said McSherry in describing the technology. "It is almost like a game."

I also sat down with COO Aaron Sheedy to have him show me first-hand how the technology works.

You can check that out in this video.

I played around with the technology myself. And while there's certainly a learning curve moving from tapping to "Swyping," one can certainly see why handset makers might be interested in promoting the service as a way to set their devices apart from the iPhone. I stumbled inputting the word "TechFlash," which kept getting picked up as "TechTrash." The word "writing" also kept getting picked up as "wedding."

To restart, you can just "re-Swype" the word. A handy box of suggested words also appears if you stumble on a word.

Sheedy said the text-input system allows people to add words to a mobile screen at rate as much as 30 percent faster than tapping.

"Here's the thing: Once you start Swyping, you can't go back," he said. "It just becomes so painful to revert back to tapping."

The technology will compete with some of the newer voice recognition systems found on mobile phones. But McSherry said "Swyping" has distinct advantages when composing long messages in unique settings. "There's a lot of environmental situations -- in the classroom, during meetings, at the dinner table or whatever -- where it is not appropriate to use voice input," he said.

Swype -- founded by the Cliff Kushler, the inventor of the T9 text input technology -- raised $1.3 million earlier this year. It has raised a little more than $2 million since Kushler filed the first patent on the technology in 2001.