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New Cell Phone Typing Solution
merlin_jim writes "Found this article on MSNBC about a new Cell Phone typing solution. It uses silicon sensors that can recognize the "shape" of each finger. The meaning of each key changes depending on which finger you use to press it; index finger for A, middle finger for B, etc. Unused finger/key combinations can be assigned to functions like ring volume." Watch out for those pop-up advertisements on your way into MSNBC. This is an idea I never really thought about for single handed typing input. A very cool idea.
...except that I use the thumb to press every key on the cellphone, holding it with the rest of the fingers.
If we have to use every finger, this means you suddenly need to use both hands just to use the phone - not a step forward.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And if you are missing a few fingers, what is one to do? If you're missing your middle finger, you are already disadvantaged in communications when you're driving. Hopefully that doesn't spread to telephones.
I didn't read the article to avoid the popups, so kill my karma if it was answered in the article.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Watch out for those pop-up advertisements on your way into MSNBC.
That's what the middle fingers function will be for...
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Another use of the technology would be for video game controllers. Instead of placing multiple buttons on a controller (Sony's controller for the PlayStation 2 has eight buttons, not even counting the four direction buttons and the start and select buttons), a single button or a few buttons could be used for all the functions, with each finger denoting a particular action.
This would mean a fundamental change to gaming interaction. Instead of training our hands/fingers to move according to a certain button pattern on an input device, we would need to train our hands/fingers to react in different combinations.
Take a simple example: Imagine you are sitting in a completely closed off room (some isolated test environment) and you are told that you need to press buttons (provided in the room) to get food and water. So you learn to press this button over here to get food and that button over there to get water, and so on. Now, the test environment changes and removes the buttons from your little room. Now, you must learn to perform certain actions to get food and water like raising your right hand for food and raising your left hand for water.
Would this change of approach be benificial to gaming?
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
How about just putting one button on cell phones and have everybody learn morse code. :)
/*drunk.. fix later*/
I don't know why nobody posted this before (or why it didn't get modded up), but on my Nokia 8260, and on my old Samsung SCH8580 there is a built-in dictionary.
The way it works is quite simple, if you try to type the word "message" all you have to do is press 6377243, and it automatically guesses the match, in this case the word "message". If there are more than one match, all it takes is pressing a button multiple times, to scroll through the list of matches. It has English, French and I believe Spanish (my phone is my coat pocket, and I don't feel like getting it).
I've been using my Nokia for quite a while with this system, and honestly I don't need anyting else. It's almost perfect, and the only difficulty is when you want to insert names, or numbers, but that only requires a couple of extra key presses.
So my question is why bother with weird finger press combinations, finger-sensing buttons when the best solution is already out there?!? I guess this is one way somebody is trying to make extra money on royalties, but I don't know...