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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!"
Excellent idea (although perhaps red-on-brown isn't the most ergnomic of configurations) :)
:)
I can see a particular application for this - people who have to author documents in many different languages. If you're a translator, or you're working on application localisation, you're quite often going to want a different key-map from your everyday layout. With this thing, a couple of clicks could give you a keyboard laid out for writing Russian, Greek, German, or whatever-you-like!
Perhaps you could even program it to give you an "any" key...
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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.
This really does look neat, but I see two problems with it. First, it won't provide the tactile feedback of a real keyboard, so I imagine it would be easy to type between "keys." Second, notice how far away the "keyboard" is away from the Palm; I think the little screen would be difficult to read from that distance (at least it would be for a poor myopic fool like me!)
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http://www.vkb.co.il
you can read all about it in detail there...
Please excuse me for being a pedant, but the headline
"Virtual keyboard a reality"
is an oxymoron.
Excellent idea (although perhaps red-on-brown isn't the most ergnomic of configurations) :)
Just wait til the lawyers get ahold of this one! Talk about an ergonomic nightmare...
"Your honor, when my client placed his virtual keyboard on a bed of nails/hot grill/downward slope/his boss' wife/Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, he was injured"
*grin*
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Wonder if you can automatically re-configure it to simulate Dvorak keyboard? That would be wonderful.
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What is accepted as a keystroke? I know when I'm writing I tend to hold my fingers on the buttons. And sometimes I might want to keep a button down for a period of time. How does this work on a keyboard that optically detects the strokes? And doesn't it become ergonomically really unsuitable for longer periods of writing?
Neat keyboard and great for people like me who like to use computers in low or light. I'm always turning on pesky desklamps to find the keyboard.
The lack of tactile feedback is a bummer though. Maybe if it chirped when you hit a key, though that might drive you nuts.
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The picture on the homepage shows a virtual keyboard projected on a car dash and the driver typing while driving. Don't we have enough ways for idiots to kill themselves (and others) by distracting them while driving?
Absolutely lovely, now when my girlfriend wants attention when im on the computer all she has to do is lie naked on me and i'll se her naked body as a keyboard :)) Now all we need is a mouse like this and we can perform the JEDI MOUSE TRICK.
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.
I'm guessing based on the photo. This might be totally wrong, but it's the best explanation I can some up with:
I doubt if they're using galvanometers and mirrors to scan that image onto the desktop. For one, they're too expensive, and also that pattern is way too complex to draw with even the fastest galvos.
More likely it's a hologram etched onto a lens, with a really bright laser diode behind it. I'm skeptical as to how visible that keyboard would be except in complete darkness.
So how to they determine which key you're pressing? Well, if they were scanning the image onto the surface, it would just be a matter of using a single photo transistor to measure the brightness of the dot as it moves across the surface. If the brightness changes at a particular point, then you know there's an obstruction. You can map this to a particular key by taking into account the positions of the fingers in the normal typing position. Multiple keys might be obstructed at one time - you only count the one that's closest to the light source.
If it's a static image, it's a little harder. The only way I can think of is to either use a CCD to to capture the whole image, or use a mechanical photo interruptor to blank out a section of the image at a time.
If it's cost effective and it really works, this is a damned impressive product.
You have the keyboard projected on you desk and your cat comes running by, stepping on the keys...
[Ctrl] + a
[Del]
[Ctrl] + s
...dead cat.
I could blow this up and then walk on it. Maybe I'd get more exercise this way.
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I know this is kinda a dupe - but a pretty good one for a more focused discussion. When I saw this in the paper today, I thought "finally, maybe somebody legitimately patented something of interest to Slashdot readers". Siemens appears to have at least one, fairly broad patent on the device/process.
Check out Patent #6,353,428 on the USPTO website:
"Method and device for detecting an object in an area radiated by waves in the invisible spectral range"
The first claim is as follows:
"1. A system for detection of an object in an area irradiated by waves in an invisible spectral range, the system comprising:
a projector configured such that a video image is projectable onto the area;
a device for emitting waves in the invisible spectral range configured such that the area is substantially illuminated;
a reception device configured such that the reception device registers the irradiated area, the reception device being specifically balanced for an invisible spectral range corresponding to the waves; and
a computer configured with a recognition algorithm, whereby the object irradiated by the emitted waves is detected using the recognition algorithm."
The patent seems pretty broad in that it uses phrases like "a reception device..." and "a recognition algorithm" to cover the process, but reading the specification makes it clear that the focus is on "virtual" keyboards, mousepads, and presentation pointing, and it is a bit more specific about the actual means of detection etc.
All and all, without being an expert in the prior art or patent law, I think this one actually seems like a pretty good patent (If you believe in patents at all, of course). Also a pretty cool invention. Obviously it will have to be improved and smallified before being really useful (and integratable into my cell phone, watch, ring, etc.), but they seem to be off to a great start!
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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
...there's three words that would worry me about using this as a keyboard for any length of time: Repetitive Strain Injury.
Touch-pad keyboards have pretty much been banned on office equipment since the mid-1980s because although they allowed users to type at great speed, they also caused massive incidence of RSI. Since then keyboards have all required definite "clicks" that need greater muscle movement.
Of course this would be fine for brief use (on a PDA or similar). And it does look cool.
For those of us who learned how to type on manual typewriters, with the notice bell that dinged 5 spaces before the end of the line, and the platen return arm that you had to thwack, pressing a key with anything less than an authoritative clunk would just get you laughed at. Sure it bruised the fingertips, but we liked it that way! When a man was typing back then, he knew it, by God! Then came the newfangled electric typewriters, that only took a minicing little tap, and then these nutty TV-typewriter "word processor" things (with a keyboard that's not even decently attached to the rest of it, I might add!) that hardly even need you to push the keys at all! And now, a laser-typewriter type thing that doesn't even *have* keys? You might as well just dictate to the thing and have it magically type up your words for you like some kind of plastic secretary!
You kids think you're so smart with your rams and drivers and codes and all. I, for one, still keep my trusty can of 3-in-1 oil next to my computer. I haven't had to use it much lately, but just wait till something jams in this thing, and that smart-ass punk Corey is stumped... then we'll see who knows how to fix a broken office machine, by God!
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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.
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Beyond the obvious keyboard click, produce different tones for different keypresses, so you know if you're hitting two keys with one finger without even looking
Create a device that uses microelectronic pulses carefully directed at different nerves in your hand to simulate a keyboard -- probably best imbedded in a glove. Potentially, this could actually "feel" like a keyboard. For work in a germ or particle free environment, the device would have to be smooth enough to be worn under latex surgical gloves.
What would really be interesting would be if someone would combine this with a data glove that uses piezoelectric crystals to provide tactile feedback.
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