Slashdot Mirror
Multi-Touch Keyboard Technology
PhoenxHwk writes "University of Delaware's webpage is running a story on the new Multi-Touch Keyboard by Fingerworks. This was on Slashdot once before, but the product is no longer vapor! Fingerworks's products are gesture-based keyboard-and-mouse "surfaces" that require zero force to work with - they are hailed as a product to both combat RSI and make working more efficient."
Nifty idea, but I can't seem to find a price for it.. might just be the /. effect, but all the google cache pages I've found just say "price $" without an amount.
Anyone know the price of these things?
The system is intended to replace the keyboard AND the mouse. I like the sound of that part. If you try to use a mouse, you waste a lot of typing time moving back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse. This would really help out there. Of course, keyboard shortcuts accomplish the same thing. They say:
That all sounds a lot like emacs and its key-chords.They say that it will reduce repetitive stress problems, but I wonder. Is tapping your fingers on a pad, or twisting your wrist, really that different than typing? If you have to do the same operations over and over, aren't you going to eventually get stressed?
See what I've been reading.
Is it just me or does this seem kind of like the interface for the pre-crime computer in Minority Report, only without those half glove thingies.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Now, I'm just talking here, but...
Why do you need the keyboard fixed in place on this thing? Why do you need keys with boundaries?
It seems as though this thing could just make the keyboard be wherever the hands feel like being. Wherever you put your hands on the pad, that's where the keyboard is.
If you have the hands resting in the touch-type position, regardless of position on the pad, and the left index-finger is depressed, type an 'F'.
If an area is tapped that is just a bit above and to the left of the left middle finger, type an 'E'.
Just put your hands down and do the motion of typing, no need to line anything up.
Or, is this how it already works? Or, is this a bad idea and I'm just a fool?
Justin Dubs
Sounds good; could also adapt fairly easily to finger length-- "home keys" need not be in a straight row. Could get a little confusing though without actually being able to tell where the keyboard would accept different letters at any given time...
After a long conversation with my father, I've come to the realization that Repetitive Stress Syndrom (Carpel Tunnel Syndrom is sorta a misnomer) isn't exactly what I thought it was. After understanding it a little better and sharing thoughts with my father, I'm not so sure that Elias' FingerWorks would really reduce RPS. While the stress is a change from the standard mouse/keyboard issue, you're still going to be repeating movements over and over again. It would be expected that such RPS would still result.
IN theory, there's very little research behind all these funky shaped mice these days. It's more of a marketing scheme than anything else. Yes, it might be more comfortable, but it really doesn't help the issue all that terribly much. The split keyboards, however, do help quite a bit. But imagine trying to use those damn things.
Eventually, he said, the computer password could be a gesture known only to the user.
I'm a classical pianist, and if I could make my password the first four bars of Rhapsody in Blue, I would feel pretty secure with my computer.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
FYI:
Early touchpad technologies were capacitive. Some laptops used to have capacitive touchpads on them, which made them crap for police use in places where you actually get a winter and might be wearing gloves. So they developed some sort of resistive keypad which, althought probably not zero force, is close enough to it and you can use it with gloves on.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
The other question one might ask is how much manual dexterity do I need to be able to make the alleged thousands of gestures without them being confusing. On the keyboard, I have some force feedback and I'm pretty good with the backspace key. With zero resistance and an ability to accidentally do mouse-gestures with my keyboarding hands, I can see some accuracy issues.
Frankly, I work often 12 hours a day at a keyboard, and I use a mouse. Since I shifted to a high res optical mouse (small movements required) and since I use all the buttons but don't have a death grip and since I use an old MS-Pro ergo keyboard with a raised bottom end (unlike most keyboards), I've had little or no pain in elbows, wrists, or tendons... unlike the bad old days on the QWERTY/top-elevated keyboards and roll-around mice.
When this new technology matures, and if I feel like re-training, it might be interesting, but I can already do a lot with what I have with little discomfort.
But we should be making it available to kids/etc coming up... they don't have a retraining issue and if it avoids some people headed down the nasty RSI path... that's good.
Minor plug: Living with RSI
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."