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Type With Your Eyes
hof writes: "Ever wanted to enter text by just looking at the screen? Take a look at Dasher. You enter text by looking or pointing to letters or words which the program thinks you are about to enter. I wonder how this can be optimized for coding -- a break for your wrists, and the code is available under GPL."
Nature Science Update: Eyes write
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Most programmers really don't need the extra wrist exercise anyway.
I wonder if this will cause your eye muscles to get bigger?
First of all, I think that it works a lot slower than ordinary typing, especially when done by a trained typist. But more importantly, if you should use this for coding all day long, you would probably feel like you have been in an all-weekend Quake frag fest. The strain on your brain (oooh, it rhymes), especially the visual part, is a lot bigger than if you're working like you do now.
Yes, they did, and I had it installed for a while.
Not to actually use mind you; its absolute shit. If you use it to enter more than three workds you'll be cross eyed and ready to hurl your mouse across the room. No no, start Dasher up, and then leave it running while you get on with your work. Hilarity ensues! (Note: Hilarity may not ensue)
When a dang popup appears. Then when I look at it to close it it opens up another add. Suddenly I am trying to close all these windows when ADULT ads started to popup. Obviously since naked women are on my screen I look at them. So suddenly I am signed up to two porn sites.
And that is why my screen is full of porn Mr smith. Please dont fire me. Its not my fault. Its this dang thing that uses my eyes to controll the computer instead of the keyboard.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
I know a guy who was born with a serious physical handicap where he has very little motor control.
He cannot write, type, or even speak. For the longest time, he actually used a board covered with the alphabet to 'talk'. He would look at the letters on the board, and you had to decifer what was being looked at. This way, he could spell out what he wanted to say. His parents were quite quick at it, and they could carry on a conversation very well.
He actually upgraded to a pair of glasses w/ a small laser on the frame a few years ago. He could then spell by looking at the keyboard, which was covered with photo-receptors. Then, the computer would talk to you Hawking-style. It was a groovy innovation. It was quite pricey, though.
Perhaps an open-source innovation such as this could open up doors for people like him. It would make equipment used for social interaction cheaper and more readily available.
Imagine taking notes in a meeting, mapping gestures to short cuts...
"Then Bert, bloody hell is this guy boring, said 'I think we should start at the beginning oh for fucks sake and then continue to the end well done sodding einstein' this was agreed as bloody obvious, does that guy get paid for it, well hello nice legs shit what did he say very nice legs up down up down up down.....
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
While I recognise the benefits for someone with serious RSI in their wrists (I've suffered, I know what it's like), the additional strain for my eyes would send me screaming.
I don't know how it is for most of you, but I'm extremely sensitive to flicker. Having moved back to the US, I notice the flicker on TV all the time. I notice the flicker on monitors, in lights, etc.
Looking from letter to letter, word to word to type would kill me.
Even if I could get higher than my current 65 wpm, I think the additional eyestrain would cause me to avoid the technology.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
You could use your hands for something else at the same time - like typing on a different computer :-)
Didn't /. already cover this? /. knows and loves if he didn't repost articles that were less than 90 days old.
Yes, but Timothy wouldn't be the Timothy
We love you Timothy! Keep posting old crap!
We love feeling intellectually superior to someone who gets paid to surf all day.
Smooches!
if ( $news_queue eq "" && ($current_time - $last_posted_article) > 7200) {
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While I don't think I want to actually type with my eyes, I have often grumbled after having typed half a paragraph into the wrong X-term that I wanted a 'focus-follows-eyes' mode...
Basically they use a markov chain which has in it the probabilities that one letter will appear after another. It's very similar to the disassociated press generators you can find out there.
For example, here is one I wrote which generates new random words based on the probabilities of one pair of letters appearing after another pair. I used pairs because it generates more English-like words.
It was "taught" using the contents of /usr/dict/words and written in Perl.
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Part of the speed of typing has to do with the fact that you are using (ok, some are using...) 8-10 fingers almost simultaneously.
Type "a quick brown fox jumps over the lazy sleeping dog". Now, mentally write it by LOOKING at each letter on your keyboard, and thinking 'click' on each one.
1) visually - takes at least 3 times longer, at least for me.
2) doing that for even a few moments is already giving me a headache.
I don't think it's going to be the next 'sliced bread'.
-Styopa