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Virtual Keyboard a Reality
billmaly writes "Yahoo has a photo and blurb here about a Virtual Keyboard
That shows a photo and bit of text on a virtual keyboard for Palm and other mobile devices. Applications seen for mobile computing, as well as areas where a standard, physical keyboard are not practical. Very cool stuff from Siemens!"
Besides the question of how quickly and accurately this device can detect your "key taps", there's also the question of the lack of tactile feedback from a physical key press slowing you down.
Sure it's psychological, but I can remember just how painfully slow typing on my Timex Sinclair's membrane keyboard was.
Add to that the normal lag of a character appearing on the screen, and I'll hazard a guess that using the built in hand recognisition will be the way to go.
Wonder if you can automatically re-configure it to simulate Dvorak keyboard? That would be wonderful.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
Hm, why not turn of that projector, and you'l have an invisible keyboard, that one must know where if is to tap in things on. Perfect for placing outside ones door as a lock (log in with username and password, without any feedback at all, to gain access to the house). In addition, it will look damn cool when one just move ones hands in strange patterns on a totally normal table next to the door, and the door magically opens. And when someone examines the table, it is just a normal table...
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
So.. as its virtual, can I change the layout and add user defined hot-keys and get rid of all those ones I don't use?
Can it emulate the layout of a variety of keyboards - Sparc style or multilanguage?
http://www.typingtest.com
Now, try it again--only hitting the keys that you have visually checked the locations of.
I was surprised at how high a score I got (touch typing).. I hadn't taken a test since high school. Years of IT/programming work just seem to hone typing skills.
Virtual keyboard, wow! This is really a cool invention. It's a great step forward for mini computing. Hell, it's a great step forward for all computing, I'm sure there will be many applications for just about every device that requires wide ranging input. The problem is, like a lot of folks have said here, that there's no tactile feedback, which will slow down the expert no-look typers. I myself don't look at the keyboard and type rather quickly, and I know for certain that without the feeling of the keys I would not be able to type at all. OK, so we're going to have to actually look at the virtual keyboard to do any typing... that's a hinderance, but it's still better than no keyboard.
We're still not to the point of "easy" data input for all computer devices. When you think about it, typing on a standard keyboard really isn't that easy. Even when you get used to it, you still make mistakes. The real "revolution" of computer input devices will be when some completely new idea comes along about how to send get input from a human and send the characters to the computer. It will take something like a glove that reads finger movement and types based on combinations of twitches, or maybe a perfect speech recognition system that can figure out the context of your words and spell everything magically. Those might not be the best solutions, or even possible for that matter, but it's going to take something like that before computing input devices get to the point where they're actually "easy" to use.
~ now you know
Many people have pointed out many times in the comments here the very obvious problem regarding the lack of tactile feedback with this keyboard system. There doesn't seem to be a good way around that one.
The only thing I could think of are little things on your fingers that give force feedback "clicks". That would possibly make it feel a bit more realistic. Perhaps they could use the technology of the Logitech iFeel mouse, just on a miniature scale, and one for each finger. The same things giving the feedback could also provide more information as to where the fingers are and what they're doing, which would possibly enhance the ability of the device to tell what you mean to be typing.
For me, there will always be the IBM Model M keyboard.
samrolken
This combined with direct retinal stimulated displays would make for more portable computing.
One idea I had to recognise finger positions (and I've also seen this announced since then) was for a sensor wristband that could learn what you were typing from measuring the nervous signals and tendon positions through the wrist.
Roll on the day when we can throw away those real keyboards! It will be about 50 years too late.
My blog
I made a (somewhat) similar keyboard to help myself overcome RSI symptoms. Each key is concave, and has an infrared beam across the top so no pressure is needed to activate it. It takes some getting used to, but works great and has helped my arms/wrists immensely. See it at: http://web.mit.edu/mjduff/www/keyboard/
Hmmm, might make using emacs a bit difficult?
Does bring up all sorts of amusing possibilities though - Just imagine someone dropping a handful of M&M's onto your desk only to find they've accidentally reset your machine, or dialled Mongolia, or emailed your boss for you...
I write touch screen applications. But the hardware cost is really prohibitive to appeal where it is needed by the computer illiterate masses.
This device could replace the screen, computer; the whole setup while allowing participants to touch regions of a surface to answer questions. Don't think of coding with this, think of remote distributed input devices with zero ware, instant customization and limitless input devices available.