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Very Cool, Very Vaporous 1-Handed Keyboard
beckett sent us linkage to one of the more bizarre one handed keyboards that I've seen in recent memory. It doesn't contain really anything technical (just a stupid rant about how people talk more during games (duh! I kept getting destroyed last night in tetrinet because I was busy screaming when I should have been dropping pieces) Update: 12/02 09:27 PM by CT : Ok, apparently it actually is 2 handed, it just looks weird and the buttons seem to be on one side.
The CTD Resource Network has a very fine examination on all kinds of keyboards, including several like the one you're looking for. These are all, as to be expected, quite pricey, but each has something to offer to everybody.
The Alternative Keyboard FAQ
I fully agree that too many 'ergonomic' keyboards still require typists to squeeze their shoulders together. I would really love a typing solution that let me place my hands wherever I please (like a motion-sensitive pair of gloves, or a pair of flexible mats), so I can reposition my arms however I like (on my lap, at my sides) and not lose any typing speed.
The Fitaly layout is optimized for one-finger (i.e. stylus) input, not one complete hand. There are variants of the Dvorak layout optimized for one-hand use, and they would probably be among the best choices for a one-hand keyboard that has one key per letter. OTOH, from the picture this isn't a one-handed keyboard at all, but a gamepad with an alphabetic keyboard attached for your thumbs. A two-thumb optimized layout would probably end up being more like Fitaly than any other existing layout.
Here's the only one-handed keyboard with mainstream potential:
You touch type with one hand USING YOUR EXISTING SKILLS. We debuted it at Comdex, the week before last.
Edgar
You could also monitor the position and force of the tendons in the wrist; this is very doable with current technology. Maybe even cheap.
Some research would have to be done one exactly what tendon-positions make which key-press, and it might turn out that it's impossible to tell. There's also the problem with people who don't have tendons near enough to the skin to be able to detect properly. People with particularily muscular wrists, or people who have a lot of fat might pose problems.
Training would be incredibly easy. One could just wear the gloves, hook the keyboard into the gloves, hook the gloves into the computer, and whenever you press a key the gloves record the position of the tendons(and their force and such), and remember which key was pressed. This needs a fair bit of intelligence on the part of the gloves(I'm actually thinking more of wrist-bands, not gloves), but things are small enough today that it shouldn't pose a problem.
I don't know enough about alternative power sources, but this device would need much at all if it could harness a bit of the energy whenever your tendons move. This could be very tiring if too much force is required to power the device, but I don't think much would be needed.
Anyways, food for thought.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Burris
I've had that idea for a while now. Pizo sensors on the fingertips to detect a keystroke, and some type of positioning sensor in the fingers of the glove, to determine finger position (so the glove would know what key you are typing). Does anybody have an info or links on something like this? Think of what a compact, affordable set of keyboard gloves could do for the PDA market. As PDA's quickly become faster and more powerful, data input is becoming the real limiting factor to their versatility. Keyboards, even folding ones, aren't always practical to carry, nor are they particularly durable.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
QWERTY sux, at least use Dvorak... it works on standard hardware and every platform.
Maltron makes a one-handed keyboard (either hand), that doesnt use chording. I ran across it while looking for my current keyboard. It looks absolutely insane, but might be what you had in mind ;)
-- toolie
I'd rather keyboards have a left component and a right component, perhaps communicating by bluetooth ... despite their assertion, this looks anything but comfortable to use while lying down, because you would have to scrunch your shoulders to the center in order to grasp the device. Lying on your side? Forget it!
How about a simple (not chording) keyboard that's split in the middle not by a few degrees of angle, but not a cord that lets you position them a few feet apart?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
If you dig through the site a bit more, it's clearly shown to have the keyboard on the underside, with thumb controls for various functions on the top. The keys appear to be rocker switches, with multidirectional activation -- so your fingers never leave the key, they just twitch in different directions.
I'd have to use it to be convinced...
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
It doesn't look very one handed to me. Just because there's only one hand in the pic doesn't mean that it can reach all of those buttons on the other side.
Actually, it looks a hell of a lot more like a gamepad. A hell of a lot more confusing.
I haven't tried it, obviously, but it looks really hard to get comfortable with. They appear to claim 50wpm. I bet that's the maximum someone's been able to get out of a prototype, the average being much lower.
It looks ok for games which require keyboard keys all the time, but most intelligent people play those with a mouse or a one-handed analog joystick anyway. The Twiddler looks much better for someone looking for a keyboard, rather than a gamepad.
If a patented invention is actually new, useful, and non-obvious, the patent should be granted. Slashdotters have a beef with the USPTO's inability to see the stupidity in applications for patents on inventions such as XOR cursor, spreadsheet recalculation, one-click shopping, DDR SDRAM (by its biggest competitor), etc. for which the patent owner builds its business around suing its competitors. (Read More...)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Contrary to intuition, chording is very easy to learn and doesn't interfere with your other keyboard memory. I've only been using it for a day and I'm already getting pretty good at it.
Burris
Code more efficiently!
"The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages." - Tao of Programming
One of the most telling things about the thing's vapor status, is the improbable reverse curve display. Especially obvious on the zoomed view of the alleged device. God help us all when industrial designers get ahold of displays that can be bent and formed into convex and concave shapes.
Yep, the only type of person stupid enough to possibly fall for this is a Wall Street investor.
Dreadful ergonomics too. This is an example not of ergonomic design, but of the insidious and evil "ergonomic style" design. Not actually good or comfortable to use, it just has to losely resemble stuff that does. Blegh!
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Is it just me, or does the verbage on the site just look like an attempt to extract maximal venture capital cash?
The picture looks like anything _but_ a keyboard -- ergonomic palm pilot (whoops -- should have patented that), funky gameboy with extra buttons, a 101 function universal remote control with a button for every function...
I like the idea of a one handed keyboard, but I don't think this is it. Has anyone made a one handed keyboard that isn't a chording setup? Seems like we're due for a new human-computer input device -- maybe a 3d joystick you hold like a pencil or something... who knows...
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
Back in the 80's I was dreaming of a 5-6-7-8-key keyboard - of course based on pressing multiple keys at a time, what is now called chording (?). To take my further, I envisioned a few electrodes on teh forehead, reading the small fast facial muscles, and providing the same amount of information totally hands-free.
In Murphy We Turst
Looks like you can't pick the thing up without typing something. I wonder if a CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) designer created this. A button for every task.