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Alphanumeric Phone Keypad - Fastap
seldo writes "The illustrious BBC has a story about a new mobile phone keypad, designed by a company called Digit Wireless, headed by one Mr David Levy, who "was head of ergonomic design at Apple for five years and was influential in the layout of its Powerbook laptops," according to the article. I don't know how it is to use, but it looks really funky. There's a demo on the site (javascript popup, so no link). The sooner I don't have to deal with the stupid 3-letters-per-button interface to send SMS, the better."
I have enough trouble hitting the right keys already. Now they're throwing letters in there? This ain't my day.
Between a few large keys and many little micro keys.
But the large keys always win because of the infamous "Wurstfinger" phenomena.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
I think they should just develop voice recognition for phones and do away with the keypad for SMS messages. Then again phones already work on a voice recognition basis - it's called calling someone!
Video Game cheats, hints a
Why do you need letters?
this kind of keypad has been out for months. this is news?
And here i was waiting for this. But a less bulky solution will be far more welcome for me. :-)
Go you Huskies.
Urm yah. The link. (Flash required)
My life is one big siesta in which I'm dreaming I wished my life was one big siesta.
why can't they just have a hidden keyboard like one in Sharp linux pda so I can use the keyboard when I really want to (it's phone, I only need the 0-9 buttons most of the time)
So this first appeared on Japanese phones. That means on another 10 years it well be the new 'latest development cutting edge' in North America's cellphone technology.
I live in North America and I still don't have WAP or SMS on my phone ... I have to settle for a proprietary browser and text system.
NOKIA, for example, has dictionaries in the newer mobile phones.
Meaning, you just press each "number" just once, even if the "letter" is the last one under this "number." The dictionary does the guessing and writes the right word.
Besides, it words as an automatic spellchecker!!! No need to be ashamed your messages now. No one's going to laugh at your bad grammar.
This is a great idea, I can really see it working BUT the method of entering numbers does sound a tad dodgy:
"Numbers are typed by pressing the four letter keys surrounding each numeral."
Surely sensing pressure centred on the actual number buttons themselves would make more sense?
Otherwise, though, great idea, even beats the Treo.
As you see I'm not writing this on a Nokia phone... I wanted to say "it works as an automatic spellchecker" but... oh well...
Has anyone actually used this new key layout? I won't pass judgement until I've used it. The only thing I'd be concern about is the phone better have a key lock to prevent accidentally dialing a number. Most phones seem to have key lock, so other than durability I don't see other huge problems.
Every now and then, somebody breaks through with an idea that really changes how we think about things. Fastap is certainly one.
The best part about this design is that none of us will need to relearn anything. It's easily, almost automatically integratable into our daily lives without having to change our behavior. Certainly this doesn't mean we'll all have one soon. We should, but if we don't, I'll be forever disappointed knowing it existed.
BTW, wouldn't this concept also work on a PDA virtual keyboard? Seems like somebody could program one for my Palm without too much trouble. Any takers?
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
I don't know whether there are actually any mobiles that use it, but that's just because I am one of the few backward people who don't have one. ;-)
See EXideas' website for details.
Nokia makes a GSM phone with QWERTY keypad, the model 5510.
Oh, I forgot - it's not available in the US so it probably cannot exist...
If you're interested in using a mobile messagingto to actually do significant work, where a mistake can cost time, money, inconvenience, hurt feelings, etc, then I suspect you'd prefer to use something PDA-sized which either has room for a real keyboard or allows you to use a stylus & touchscreen to tap out a message.
In effect, they already have with their demo.
Surely, though, a virtual keyboard wouldn't need this?
But wouldn't it be the same for the new "keyboard"?
Besides, the dictionary thingie is quite handy. I have to write in Spanish about half of the time. And I'm not exactly Spanish. So it helps me a lot. Although at times it messes up with the "accents." [The future (or first person) is sometimes unknowns for the dictionary.]
I don't know.. This thing sure adds a lot of new buttons to keep in order. And even thought you have direct access to each letter, I don't really se the point when you have a built-in dictionary. Kind of already gives you direct access, doesn't it?
- cfelde
For the past year and a half i've carried the Ericsson Chatboard with my t26 and now my t39m with hbh-15 bluetooth wireless headset.
The keyboard in the phone is no new paradigm -- think back to the late 90s with the release of the Nokia 9xx0 phones. Despite their size they are still popular as mobile email/web terminals.
I personaly prefer to the t39m to my collection of 9xx0 phones....
...and 12keying your message isnt really that bad, ask any guitar player...
This communication is secured using Rot-26 Encryption Algorithm, Unauthorized decryption will be subject to laughter.
T9 text input (now owned by AOL) allows you to easily type messages in you phone. It only takes as many key presses as the word is long in most cases, so no more 3 presses per letter. They have a very informative demo on the site showing how it works. basically it guesses which of the three letters you want, based on what you have entered so far, and the best choice changes as you type more letters. If the word you want is the one it guesses, you just cycle to the next word that matches the key combo you entered.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
I personally would love to see this made for Cyrillic. It won't be a big jump at all, there are only 30 letters there, but it will be a big hit and a nice thing to do.
"Mr Levy said it reduced the number of taps needed to form Japanese characters from eight to two. Now, Digit Wireless is working on a keyboard for Chinese."
I don't know chinese, but I know there's thousands of characters. Anybody have any ideas how they could pull this off?
Wow, they're really working David Levy's Apple background for all it's worth!
From the Digital Wireless Home-page:
"Fastap could do for wireless phones what Apple Computer's desktop did for the PC."
-- Brad Smith
Wireless Week ----
Looks like the best career move any aspiring Tech billionaire could make is to go earn some bragging rights by spending a few weeks working for Apple. Seriously, if you've just graduated with your 1st in Comp Sci, go work as a toilet attendant in Cupertino, that sort of cred will make even your worst future start-ups seem like rosier prospects.
Geeks who are still using so-called "multi-tap" input should be ashamed of themselves. Dictionary based methods, T9 (from Tegic/AOL), and iTap (Motorola's equivalent) have been standard on phones for a couple of years now, even if they do have their short-comings.
If you're not into the legacy layout* you could go with MessagEase or this new thing, but the smart money is on a company called Eatoni, since they have two products (LetterWise and WordWise) which they back up with a big stack of research. There's also Zi Corp. who make eZiText and eZiTap for SMS input.
If you're interested in the HCI aspect of all this you could do worse than looking at the work of I Scott Mackenzie, Poika Isokoski or Mark Dunlop.
* 1-800-GOFEDEX anyone? Probably explains why Europe is ahead of the US in this field. That and our ridiculous txt addctn...
Anyway, a summary, if you are interested, is that of the solutions proposed so far, most of them fall into a few categories:
Chorded keyboards: Think microwriter here, or a court reporter's typewriter. The idea is that you get around the small space available for keys by having a group of keys select each character; The microwriter only had four keys for the whole alphabet. The speed of input achievable is quite fast, but the interface is far from easy to learn.
Full key boards: Usually the complaint is that having all of the keys on one small device is no good for anyone with adult sized fingers.
Soft, or stylus input: This is just a touchscreen solution. You can either use a stylus - which is probably not convenient for a phone, or your fingers, where you are back to the problem of dealing with small or not enough keys.
Reduced keyboards: Where you use some method other than chording to input characters on a keyboard with fewer keys than letters in the alphabet(e.g. T9, multi-tap...)
This new device seems to fit in somewhere between a full keyboard and a chorded keyboard. The novel solution here is that you can fit a full keyboard on by using easy-to-learn chording to signify numbers.
See Nokia 5510, it has a largeish split keyboard. Haven't tried it, but I'd imagine it's at least some good.
/. would really be cool, you could read all new things on your cell phone (with GPRS of course). The WAP/HTTP gateways don't seem to convert large html pages to wml very well.
And of course, the Communicator has a normal QWERTY keyboard.
Other Nokia (and most other makers too) have a predictive system. In my 6310i, it seems to work pretty well, although it's not very useful where you need it most often, inputting text in WAP pages. For example, it can't predict your usernames or passwords for wap sites very well...
Not that I ever send SMSs. Well, maybe one or two per cell phone I've owned, just to see how it works.
BTW, WAP version of
Even if it isn't possible to create a true QWERTY layout, I see no value in going with an alphabetical order.
When I saw the layout, the first thing I thought about was the abcdef-type text input on TI calulators. I spent a lot of time in school putting _notes_ into my TI, and could never get used to the non-qwerty layout. I would not consider this as a time saver for myself.
Why, 1-800 CALL-ATT of course!
Dial down the center; it's free for you and cheap for them!
Also, then we'd never see any more Carrot Top commercials--wait, that might be a good thing.
According to the interactive demo:
Like most new human interfaces, this will surely take some getting used to, but is this really good ergonomic design? How can you consistently avoid registering a press on nearby buttons? Even if the device is smart enough to tell the difference between intentional and accidental key-presses, every other device out there requires the user to consistently and squarely press each button involved in an input operation. People are used to that, and it's not likely to change.
I don't know about anyone else, but it's gonna be really difficult for me to feel comfortable using an interface where fat-fingering the keypad is normal.
They should add a button to raise and lower the letter keys so you get the option of bringing them up for use, or recessing them when not needed.
because it's funny! ;)
I always thought it'd be nice to have two physical devices, possibly connected to the same service and same rate plan. I'd love to just use my cellphone for talking on, and using something with a regular QWERTY keyboard for typing (like Motorola's Vbox).
I'd really like to get a Vbox to do messaging with, but I wouldn't want to use it for a phone. I have a phone (V60), but it's awkward to do messaging with (even with T9). Of course if I did get both, I'd have to pay for both! No thanks!
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
Speaking of cool keyboards, how bout those virtual keyboards on zdnet and elsewhere. They project keyboards on any surface and use cameras to sense where your fingers are. Msn story with a photo. Different model at ananova. I know there's no tactile feedback, but think of the compactness.
The interactive demo shows a hand using its index finger to do the dialing... but I know for myself and many others we use the good old thumb of the hand holding the phone to hit the buttons. And by the size of those buttons, if you want to hit the number instead of any letters, when using your thumb it looks like it could be a pain in the ass. Instead of hitting the number first, your big fat thumb would hit a surrounding letter. This technology doesn't help very much if I now have to use two hands to dial.
Not really. Read the F'ing article you morone. It is not available until the end of the year. How can anyone have tried it? I remember and miss the old Slashdote. You people ruine it for everyone.
From the article:
The design fits 26 letters of the alphabet, the * and #, 10 numbers, three punctuation keys, a space bar, shift and delete key into an area no larger than one-third of a business card.
I dont think we (North) Americans could use it, with our large hands and all...
"Your fingers are too fat to use this telephone; To order a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your hand now..."
Three cheers for Major Dumbass!
Hello. I have an idea on my shelf for a one-hand qwerty replacement keyboard. I thought it up back in early 2001. It resembles MessageEase in a way, but I prefer my idea to theirs. I think it has the potential to "change everything" - not to be dramatic. Problem is, I don't know how to proceed. I don't have the money or connections to get a protoype manufactured. I do, however have a half-completed prototype I've been working on out of some disassembled QWERTY keyboards. If any of you would like to take this idea and run with it, or have any ideas of how I can make this a reality, please let me know. My name is Steven Shultz I can be reached at 2e@2e.org I put up this site back in April 2001. Since then I've developed a new, more efficient (in my opinion) key layout, but the overall look is the same.
You've never heard of T9??
For those who don't like the alphabetical layout here, think about where QWERTY came from and that this is supposed to replace cell phone keyboards which are already alphabetical, and not computer keyboards.
Wow. Putting a button for each letter of the alphabet.. how INNOVATIVE!
Give me a break.
Ever tried to type stuff out letter for letter on an alphabetic setup? it's a pain in the ass.
I bet they get a patent for this incredibly brilliant idea.
Get real. What's wrong with the virtual keyboard on your pda? How is this any better? This is worse even. At least the virtual keyboard on a pda is arranged like a typewriter, not alphabetically, so you have some natural instinct as to where letters are (if you can type)
Please. This is news how?
Haven't you heard of T9???
Why "the illustrious BBC"? Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining - just wondering...
Nice--you changed the rank, but you used a previously used epithet. Better luck next time.
...so I gotta do with what I've got...
However, if you have T9 AND the keypad then I don't see a speed increase beyond the max of one or the other.
In other words, I can see the T9 speeding the normal keypad up to the full keypad. But if you have new keypad... then how is it going to speed your typing if you have the T9? I can see accuracy increase, sure... But speed?
They've kept the letters in alphabetical order. They should be in QWERTY arrangement.
When keyboards were first designed in the 80s, the QWERTY design became the most popular as it allows the user's fingers to travel a smaller distance, and to increase typing speed ten-fold over the old clumsy Dvorak systems.
mogorific carpentry experiments
here is a link to the qwerty version of this keyboard:
http://www.digitwireless.com/qwerty.html
Oh man you fucked it all up!
Three cheers for Private Cockenpuller.
The illustrias[sic] BBC. From the Greek Ill-u (to kick the buttocks)-of a slave or non-citizen (madman, foreigner, mental-deficient). BBC (to inhale, at length, the fumes of a rich narcotic - from Byron 'Bliss, and Bliss Compounded...'). Skake'spere "ne're man did grasp a sweeter fruit". Churchill "there are bad men, there are sad men, but there are no bad, sad men!"
Actually this is true. I've been there and I know. To be honest it was one of those free-throw nights when timing made up for looks, skill and courage. I was there, I was picked, I was the last to get to sleep. It's like one of those disney movies where the faithful dawggie comes home, in the thunderstorm and saves the entire family and gets eir picture took by slavering new-yehhrk paparazzi. It's like when the meteor strikes... *WHUMP* and suddely you're the only one left to justify 250,000 years of evolution. You do your best, you know?
Anyhow, I promised I wouldn't tell any of eir friends, ever, and I neglected to wash for a week.
There is a god.
When the last racist dies, I'll sleep. Till then, I'll sup cold coffee, and wait... windage and elevation...
(from the interactive demo) What kind of New Econmy Dot-Com bullshit marketing crap is that?
Is it me or is the placement of the letters all wrong, shouln't the most commonly used letters be grouped together, and the most comon sequences of letters used to work out the relative locations of the other letters, only a short while ago I heard something about the worry of RSI to some people who text to much, surely they should have looked at this...
Three cheers for Agent Assfucker
My phone has only two extra buttons on the bottom. The * and the # next to the zero.
It is what makes my phone this small and easy in use.
After I read the article I drew the keys to figure out how large it would be (I didn't see the link).
This way of integrating the alfabet will make it neccecary to make six more buttons.
SIX more bottons.
If they start to really use this, making phones as small as mine (a motorola V series 60) will not be an option anymore, because of the huge keypad.
Gotta Love it. Especially when you're in a club, off your trolley, eye wobbles and shakes, and you can still text "Where are you? The World is a lonely place!" to your friends so they can come and find you.
Yay me!
I just watched the usage comparison and they showed the t9 option only performing about 3 key strokes better than a multi-tap interface, and significantly worse than their system for the same phrase. So I tested it on my phone with t9, "be home by 9!" only takes 17 key strokes/presses here. Most of them being used to find the !
hrrrmmmm
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
It's designed as a stroke recognition system (for use with styli) but I'm sure we are all smart enough to see how it can be used on a phone keypad, too.
Only 2 keypresses per letter, and you could probably optimise that quite a bit with some T9-like prediction, too.
It's been discussed here before, too. I'm suprised no-one mentioned it.
Aha-ha, ye were trolled.
http://www.digitwireless.com/demos/interactive_fla sh.html