Slashdot Mirror
Palm 'Molecular' Keyboard
Frank writes: "Here's an interesting new Palm application I found over at PalmGear.com. It's a new technology from IBM research called ATOMIK, it potentially allows typing of faster than 40 words per minute by using a Metropolis optimization algorithm in which the special keyboard is treated as a "molecule" and each key as an "atom"."
It's called a fucking chord keyboard.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
But can it be subject to keystroke logging?
Make sure and order your free sticker for the keypad layout. It'll be a neat car/cubicle decoration anyway.
-mark
Only with electrons
"a Metropolis optimization algorithm"? :)
sounds like something from superman
can i remap my pc keyboard to do this? (maybe i should get a blank keyboard fisrt). Its about time we started using a keyboard thats designed to _help_ us find the keys instead of slowing us down... (ie QWERTY)
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Back when I had my Palm PDA I used FitalyStamp as my input method (a version is also available for the PocketPC). It's significantly faster than graffiti, and according to a contest held last year the fastest "tapist" could tap out words at 81.74 wpm! Sound crazy? You can see for yourself how fast they tap.
Same idea as the Fitaly keyboard. But I think the Fitaly would be easier to navigate with a stylus.
this technology has been aroud for quite some time. Fitaly uses it and some others .cz so this sh*t won't save me anyway.
ok, maybe the algorithm is new but it's almost the same. In any case I'm from
"Alphabetically-tuned layout: Generally, letters from A to Z run from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of the keyboard. This layout helps novice users find letters that are not yet memorized."
Although it may allow for new users this would basically land me back at sqare one with wpm. I would probably average only a few wpm plus a bucketful of typos switching from standard qwerty layout.
No curly braces / squiggly brackets / accolades
I'm using quikwriting right now and its pretty good. I especially like the way the overlay works, you just print it out on a transparency and slide it in, which is much better than a sticker imo.
Its probably slower than Fitaly and this keyboard but it does a pretty good job.
http://mrl.nyu.edu/projects/quikwriting/
Until I can plug my PDA into my brainpan, I'll stick with transcriber on the ipaq and the targus stowaway keyboard for heavy text entry..
air and light and time and space
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. QWERTY keyboards have dominated for over a century, despite the proven inefficiencies of the layout, and despite the introduction of several allegedly superior products (I've never tried a Dvorak keyboard or anything else non-QWERTY, so I can't say).
In any case, I think that as people who tend to investigate things on the forefront of technology, Slashdot readers with Palms/Visors should consider checking this out...
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To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
is a robotic hand that can write that fast
I wonder how similar this would be to the one handed DVORAK keyboard layout.
Pseudocode is code to demonstrate a concept, not designed to be run. Like certain M$ software.
Some posters are saying it's just the same concept used in other schemes. From what I gather reading the article, it's not. It's a standard 'press one key at a time' keyboard, which everyone knows how to use, but they have optimized the layout so going from one key to the next is as fast as possible on average (in English writing, that is). Then they made up the required buzzwords for the PHBs of the world, the whole 'molecular synergy paradigm' crap.
and every other alternative, which is the fact that it isn't qwerty. I know on the face of it is sounds like a stupid reason but there is logic in the stupidity...
As much as I would want to learn a faster method of typing. unless I can use the same keyboard everywhere I am (at home - easy, at college - hard, at work - you try asking your boss to switch), then I will never be able to learn the new keyboard layout because I'm frever switching back and to from a qwerty keyboard layout. As is mentioned in nearly every dvorak tutorial I have seen, you need to use the same layout all the time until you are proficient with the new layout. Switching back and to between layouts only lowers your typing speed in both layouts.
Now, if somebody could come up with a keyboard (cheaply, I dont want to sell my firstborn to type faster), that physically remaps the keys (so I can select US/UK keyboard layout in windows, but get a different layout on the actual keyboard), this would mean I could take this keyboard with me wherever I went (although on a palm it might be difficult), and use it in work, college, as well as at home, simpy unplugging the old keyboard and inserting the new without messing up the software settings that managers/admins won't hate you for 'hacking/cracking the network'.
Where are percent (%), dollar-sign ($), carat (^) and ampersan (&)?
Are they just not part of regular palm use?
Here's a better image of what the keyboard actally looks like.
...That we move away from using a qwerty keyboard just because it's what the computer professionals are used to. Admittedly the immediate effect would be for me (and every other /.er) to drop to a sluggish hunt-and-peck typing style, but in the future it should be easier to learn for novices, and boost everybody's wpm.
Also, I think the idea of designing the keyboard according to Fitts' law applied to a certain language is a cunning idea - seems the obvious choice to boost wpm and reduce typing strain. Of course it'd have to be changed for other languages, but that is a fairly simple task, and it's not like it doesn't happen already (the French azerty, anyone?)
Of course, we'll have to wait for a hardware version with all keys implemented before it's worth learning.
-m
Wow, after reading the article I found that by creating analogies I can accelerate anything I try.
/. as bread. Each article is a loaf, each post is a slice. Not only has this accelerated my reading. I don't feel as hungry.
/. until lunch.
/.!
To prove the point, I treat
If I read a few slices in the morning, I don't need to visit
Thanks IBM! Thanks
Since the Metropolis algorithm is based on the decay of an isotope from a dead world, eventually it will no longer be implementable.
I argued that we instead use the Gotham algorithm which can be regenerated by a random bat attack.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/fiction writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine homee this morning. I'm sure we'll all miss him - even if you didn't read his books you've probably enjoyed one of his movies. Truly an American icon.
As heard on NPR a few minutes ago - Anti-Government Visionary Timothy McVeigh was found dead in his Terre Haute prison this morning. I'm sure we'll all miss him - even if you didn't follow his work you've probably enjoyed some of his writings. Truly an American icon.
Similar to simulated annealing if I recall correctly.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
It's a Monte Carlo method related to simulated annealing.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Did you or the person MODing you up actually read the article??? This is not an physical keyboard, it's for the touchpad of your palm type device. Not many people have used a QWERTY keyboard with the palm Stylus...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Crashes with MemoryMgr.c, Line: 4340, NULL handle. Perhaps its interfering with some of my other extensions. Or the half dozen other things I've got installed with patch system traps on the Palm. None the less, sloppy coding by Big Blue...
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This is a keyboard for YOUR Palm/Visor/Workpad. You know, that little device that you take wherever you go?
So will you be able to use the same keyboard at home as you do at work and at school? Yes! Because you're typing into the same device!
This is only a problem if you have fifty different PDA's that you actively use. (And if that's a problem for you, I can help: give me some of them.)
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
My favourite alt keyboard-like input has to be Thumbscript. It uses the 9 keys of a number-pad (like on a phone) to input characters. There's a free PalmOS hack, but I would really like to use it with real (physical) buttons, like the prototype pager on the home page./p
I'm a bomb regardless
The problem with tap typing is that you don't get any benefit from 10 fingers. So they're all basically the same. And I still prefer graffiti because I can use it without even looking down at my PDA.
Also, the Palm Keyboard is only $100US, and is really terrific if you are just looking for portability and super-fast input without having to re-learn a keyboard.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
My keyboard is made of atoms and molecules, and I bought it two years ago.
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I was thinking, wouldn't it make more since to make it similar to a keyboard layout? For those of us who actually have that type of keyboard layout memorized? It pretty much means any computer user will need to move back and forth between the two layouts. It would decrease my typing time tremendiously.
Just some random thoughts.
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the previous poster works for fitaly.com [fitaly.com] and is spamming an advertisment for fitaly.com [fitaly.com]
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Maybe you guys should look into PHP Nuke or something. At least something that works.
Up your's, AC has no karma
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(and you thought script kiddies' typing was useless... sheesh).
this is not a goatse.cx link, I found a way to fool slashdot into thinking my link was to goatse.cx, but it isn't! trust me.. click on it and see
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Metropolis and simulated annealing are mostly the same, I think. It basically works like this:
1) Start off with a proposed solution (I suppose the "molecule").
2) Evaluate its fitness, let's call that F. The fitness of the keypad was probably the weighted sum of stylus transition times from letter to letter. Lower fitness would be better (I know it doesn't sound right, but it's used by a lot of Evo-algorithm researchers).
3) Randomly mutate the "molecule" to something similar to the original. Here, the researchers probably randomly swapped key positions, or "atoms".
4) Evaluate the fitness of the new "molecule".
5) Calculate the change in fitness, let's call that dF.
6) If dF < 0, then use the new "molecule", and go back to step 2.
7) Calculate the value of p=e^(-dF/T), where T is a constant. This value p is the probability you will switch to the new "molecule".
8) Go back to step 2.
I think the difference between Metropolis and simulated annealing is that T, the temperature of the system, goes down with time in simulated annealing.
Anyhow, the reason I quoted the words "molecule" and "atom" is because they are only loosely related to the algorithm. And to call this thing a "molecular" keyboard is misleading (well, except for the fact that most matter here on earth is molecular). I could go ahead and replace the words "molecule" with "tinkertoy" and "atom" with "rods and wheels" and I'll sell you a tinkertoy keyboard. It could go well with that tinkertoy computer they built at MIT...
Being a Fitaly user for about six months, I can now tap more than 50 wpm. However that wpm rate only applies when I am typing a lot of text and do not have my Stowaway with me.
From looking at the pictures provided, there are a few reasons temping me to learn a new key layout and switch to ATOMIK. First of all, IBM has managed to fit the number pad into their basic keypad. Whereas on Fitaly you would need to press the little '123' button to get a number pad. This may not seem like a big deal, however I do find a lot of the time I dont even use the '123' button, but just write the numbers in Graffiti (I use Fitaly virtual keyboard so the Graffiti area is still available).
Secondly, rarely used keys such as 'w, x, y, z' are placed together on the bottom right of the keypad, which is easy to remember and find. Fitaly on the other hand, because they map their keys based on frequency of individual keys (rather than pair of keys) used, the letters 'w, x, y, z' are found scattered around the outer border of the keypad. The placement of these keys on Fitaly slow me down greatly, and it seems ATOMIK may have found a better solution.
Now I know I may sound like I am strongly in favor of IBMs ATOMIK, but its only because I have used Fitaly for so long and know all the advantages/disadvanges of it. I do believe it is possible for ATOMIK to take over Fitaly as the replacement keypad of choice on handheld devices, but I wront really know until I give it a try. Nonetheless, the design looks very promising.
[FAT]Rangerhttp://slashdot.org/articles/01/08/25/2223238.shtm l is the link for the "Pirates!" story above this one, and when I go to it, it says "Nothing to see here, move along." Wonderful! Also, my cookie is not being read, and I cannot log in. Can you guys revert to slash 1.8 or whatever you were using a couple of weeks ago?
Man, I want to see someone writing 40 words minutes on that thing, Oh, and writting something intelligible, not sakhkdsfhdkhnssakohdwkldhas's :)
Imagine that little plastic pen, imagine the guy's face while hitting that thing like crazy and sticking his tongue out in the middle of a meeting.
"hey Joe, what are you doing? playing tag against a pixel?"
:)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
the ANN in my Newton understands me so well, sometimes I think she - sorry it - loves me. At night she sleeps under my pillow too. Keyboards? who needs them when you can have a mchine that LOVES you?
That was classic intercourse!
There wouldn't be any benefit. This keyboard is designed for use of a single stylus. The goal is to minimize average distance between successive keystrokes. There are no "home keys" (where your fingers rest on a regular keyboard). On a regular keyboard, you have many fingers (if you know how to type
I tried this new system and it seems to work. Not having the patience to wait for the sticker, I downloaded the , used xv to crop it and print it out in Postscript with the main area at 164pt by 60pt. That seems to work OK.
This new
1. Go to the main page
2. At the bottom, click (request one here):
3. Fill out form
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I don't know Korean, but for Chinese and Japanese input methods, it's very common to let phrase appear for choice after one word is input. It isn't useful for English using keyboard, coz' reading the screen to find the correct word after inputing a few characters just slowing thing down. However, that's a good idea on Palm, where there's no keyboard and you need to search for that character key to touch anyway.
Now I can tell my friends who told me that CJK input methods were not interesting to English speaking world were wrong.
A sig is redundant.
e-acute [e-acute.fr], which uses one of the more unusual keyboards I have ever seen, which is a spoked wheel of penstrokes. I gave this a quick run through and it certainly is interesting, more so for very-small PDAs.
The second is the Palm keyboard replacement that I think is the best and a work of virtuosity, and certainly doesn't get the coverage it deserves. It is a free piece of software called VirtualKB [freewarepalm.net).
A guy named Gustavo Broos (I looked up his name on the 'About' screen so he gets some credit for this fine work) made a free Hack that lets a keyboard layout template be configured by the enduser instead of the Palm keyboard's default layout. Brilliantly thought out, with an improved cut/copy/paste/undo/redo/find micro-toolbar also across the top of the window. Works nice for international character sets too, so don't have to endlesslessly switch between the two keyboards. Also good for pre-OS 3.5 users (like myself) who want to use graffiti strokes while the keyboard is displayed.
I suppose one could map this IBM keyboard layout to a VirtualKB if they run out of stickers after being slashdotted :)
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Your post should be modded up to +10.
I agree completely. Let those whiny nancy-boys go somewhere else.
With talking, typing, handwriting, and even graffiti, you don't have to pay too much attention to the data entry method itself while you're entering the data. Thus your senses are free for other tasks. This input method seems like it would require you to have your eyes glued to that little keyboard all the time. I wonder if anyone has done studies comparing input methods like this against the old standbys, but comparing not only input speed and accuracy, but other factors like comprehension. E.G. compare this against note-taking with pen and paper, but then ask questions about the subject matter.
Can be found here:
m l
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/demos/quikwriting.ht
.
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Don't read this!
They naturally presumed that you'd hit the spacebar more often than any other key, so that became the center. Frequently pressed keys are arranged close to the center to minimize the distance your stylus travels to hit them. What they're talking about when they call it "molecular" is that letters which are hit frequently one after another are placed closer together, and that they considered all the two-letter combinations in english to see which were the most important groupings.
You guys are getting the wrong idea when you talk about replacing qwerty with this. The major difference, obviously, is that we have many fingers but only one stylus. This is also why a chord system doesn't enter the picture here. The developers are trying to increase the speed of entry with just a stylus. (Fitt's law still applies to fingered systems, but it's greatly complicated.)
Personally, I'd like to see a PDA which is intended for two-handed use, something shaped more or less like an N64 controller, but with the buttons on the underside, and for fingers not thumbs. It'd be bigger, but more useful.
For data entry, voice is another option, but I'd actually rather type than speak. Besides all the technical difficulties in voice recognition, I think I'd prefer the privacy of typing in the many situations where I don't want my stored information to be public. (plus, I'd feel pretty stupid dictating to a PDA in an office cube.)
I hope I'm not just stating the blatantly obvious.
The optimization disappears when you write another language. English is common, but it is not the only one. Worse yet, there are accents and tildes that further complicates this picture.
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i was wondering why we are still using qwerty at work until i realized that i usually don't code more than a few lines in an hour. having a faster keyboard layout would make my productivity artificially lower, scary thought. eh
:/
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In 1968 Douglas C. Engelbart presented not only hypertext and the mouse. He also used a keyboard consisting of 5 keys only. It looked like a very short piano keyboard. By pressing the keys in combination, he was able to type with one hand, blindly, at high speed.
I think it was more or less his only invention at the presentation that didn't make it into a mainstream product.
Two years ago, I modified the design by integrating microswitches into a joystick-formed object, and wrote a small driver for BeOS. I also thought about integrating a pointer device like the one in IBM notebooks, but never did so.
The microswitches were suboptimal, and I never really learned to write fast with it. But other people reported that they could write on a 5 button keyboard much faster than on a conventional one.
I think the modified design of the 5 button keyboard might be an ideal input device for PDAs and wearables. They're compact. Plus you can use them to point and type blindly, and do so fast.
You too?
We'll be stuck with QWERTY for another 120 years, because 4 or 5 "competing" commercial methods can never create a new standard.
Just as Linux is the only hope of breaking away from the M$ operating system "standard", only a free keyboard layout can break QWERTY (or QWERTZ for Germans, etc.).
I say we take Fitaly and Atomik, find a "good enough" intermediary and take that as a new open standard. Who's going to prove it's a "derived work" - the Fitaly or Atomik inventors? To do so, they would imply that each is a derived work of the other!!! Bwahahahaha!!!
stimulation, my friend, stimulation.
Here's a JPEG of the sticker itself. Use xv or whatever to crop it at the outer line boundary (the copyright is not part of the sticker), and print it at about 164pt x 60pt. You'll get a pretty good approximation you can tape to your Palm and it will work until your sticker comes in the mail.
Folks seem to be commenting on how this could replace QWERTY keyboards. It is fine for stylus work; however, it looks like this optimization does not factor in two focal points.
i never said it was the most efficient, but it became a standard. anyways, it has become the most efficient because that's what we all know how to use. If we switched to dvorak, then the efficiency would be greatly reduced as everyone had to buy new keyboards and had to learn a whole new system. everyone would be making errors left and right and taking twice as long to type. QWERTY has become our standard and cannot be changed without serious consequences.
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The big advantage I see to Grafiti (sp?) is that I don't have to look at my palm to keep writing. I can be looking at the person I'm talking too, or at a presenters screen. Try to do that with a keyboard no matter how optomized it is.
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