Virtual Keyboard
Archfeld sent a strange piece of technology called the Senseboard which
is a portable keyboard, except that there's really not any keys. Or a board. And it can communicate via RF for all your strange wearable applications.
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You can visit them at Comdex:
Events
Visit us at COMDEX Fall 2001 in Las Vegas, November 12-16
A SenseboardTM prototype will be exhibited at COMDEX, Booth L2539, the Swedish Pavilion (Floor Map PDF-format)
I saw the virtual keyboard on the comdex floor. It sounds like a great concept, but did not appear to function with a high degree of speed and accuracy. THe basic concept is interesting -- using neural networks to correlate the electrical signals from muscle movements with corresponding strokes on a keyboard, but more work needs to be done on the algorithms. The 2-man team behind the board is hoping to develop a product by march that could be used by anyone without training. But in the demo, only one person on the development team was able to use the keyboard, which seems to indicate that it will be more difficult to create a system that will work for a large population of users without training. That said it is an interesting concept that needs more work, and will probably require each user to train the keyboard for their movements, much like people do with continuous speech recognition programs today.