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."
All I want is one key.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
Sounds like an interesting product/technology. I can't imagine gaming with one of these though.
I have had one of these for several months now, it is really nice.
The biggest problem that I have faced with it is getting used to typing with no force feedback (since there are no moving parts). Furthermore, it is hard to keep your fingers in the correct locations, since, with the exception of two little raised dots, there are no physical boundries between the keys.
One of the best thigns about this keyboard though is how the entire touchpad of the keyboard can be used as a mouse. Remeber the article just recentally here about mouse gestures? Just imagine really using gesture with your hands, it is awesome.
Again, there is a tough learning curve, but then once you get past it, it is an awesome product, well worth the money.
Enjoy. Sept. 27, 2002--University of Delaware researchers have developed a revolutionary computer interface technology that promises to put the bite on the
traditional mouse and mechanical keyboard. 3We have developed a technology that goes well beyond the mouse and mechanical keyboard,2 John Elias, UD
professor of electrical and computer engineering, said. Elias and Wayne Westerman, UD visiting assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering,
have been working on the new interface for about five years and are now marketing their iGesture product through a company called FingerWorks. In a
surprise move, the two scientists began shoving the new keyboard up each others' asses simulatneously, while using the new keyboard technology to stimulate
the colon and the G spot, respectively. The project started as a doctoral thesis by Westerman, who was then a UD graduate student working with Elias. The
FingerWorks name fits because the technology uses a touch pad and a range of finger motions to communicate commands and keys to the computer. To
open a file, you rotate your hand as if opening a jar; to zoom or de-zoom, you expand or contract your hand. Elias said the communication power of their
system is 3thousands of times greater2 than that of a mouse, which uses just a single moving point as the main input. Using this new technology, two human
hands provide 10 points of contact, with a wide range of motion for each, thus providing thousands of different patterns, each of which can mean something
different to the computer. While much about the computer has changed over the last three decades-greater power, faster speeds, more memory-what has not
changed is the user interface. 3For what it was invented for, the mouse does a good job,2 Elias said. 3People accept the mouse and the mechanical keyboard
because that1s the way it is. But there are limitations in terms of information flow. There is so much power in the computer, and so much power in the human,
but the present situation results in a communications bottleneck between the two.2 Elias and Westerman have a better idea. 3I believe we are on the verge of
changing the way people interact with computers,2 Elias said. 3Imagine trying to communicate with another human being using just a mouse and a keyboard.
It works, but it is slow and tedious. 3This is not just a little step in improving the mouse, this is the first step in a new way of communicating with the
computer through gestures and the movements of your hands. This is, after all, one of the ways humans interact.2 Elias said he could envision in the next 10
years 3a very complex gestural language between man and machine.2 The system is a multi-touch, zero force technology, Elias said, meaning the gestures and
movements use all the fingers in a light and subtle manner. Because of that, the system has a second major advantage over the mouse and mechanical
keyboard because it can greatly reduce stress injuries such as tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome attributed to traditional computer work. The company
markets both stand-alone touch pads and touch pads built into nonmechanical keyboards. In the keyboards, the keys overlap the touch pad so the operator
does not have to move his hands when switching between typing and using the mouse. Rather, everything can be done in a smoother flow of hand motions.
Elias explained the touch pad acts like a video camera, recording the objects touching its surface. An embedded microprocessor then applies an algorithmic
process to convert those touches into commands understood by the computer. 3To observers watching somebody use multi-touch, it looks a little like magic,2
Elias said, illustrating his point on a computer in Evans Hall. 3People see lots of things happening on the computer screen but very little hand motion is
observed.2 He said the system has been designed so the gestures used make sense for the operation being performed. For instance, you cut text with a pinch
and paste it with a flick. Eventually, he said, the computer password could be a gesture known only to the user. Elias said people often think that speech
recognition systems will become the ultimate user interface. 3Voice commands are good for many things but terrible for other things,2 Elias said, adding he
believes there are inherent problems with a speech-only interface. 3If you want to test this claim, you can do so with a perfect speech recognition
system-another human being,2 Elias said. 3Put somebody in front of your computer and try to do your work by issuing voice commands to him. You1ll
quickly find that many common tasks are difficult to do using speech, even though your OEcomputer interface1 understands you perfectly.2 Using hand and
finger motion to input commands is, for many tasks, much more effective than trying to explain what you want to do in words, he said. The system is being
used at several work stations in Evans Hall and the reaction is largely favorable. It is something of a challenge for some workers, Elias said, because it is like
learning a new language. Susan Foster, UD vice president of information technologies, said she is impressed with the interface and plans to adopt it for use at
several computer sites around campus. 3The device is the result of new thinking about the OEbandwidth1 that constrains the physical interaction between
operator and computer,2 Foster said. 3It capitalizes on human gestures, which are easy to understand and execute. Once learned, like other motor skills, they
are readily retained. The assistive qualities of the device also make it quite useful for those with limitations on upper extremity use.2 The plug-and-play device,
which requires no special software, should be of particular interest to programmers, graphic designers and editors, Foster said, and she is recommending they
consider making use of a new technology that was 3born and bred at UD and under continuing development here.2 The University of Delaware is an equity
partner in FingerWorks. For more on FingerWorks, see the web site at [www.fingerworks.com]. Photos by Eric Crossan
It senses capacitance from the fingers getting infinitely close to the surface.
now what will everyone do when faced with "press any key to continue..."?
'any' key? it doesn't even have an 'enter' key!
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
I'm glad to see they are continuing their policies on advertisements here on /.
You would think a slashvertiser would strengthen their site before getting a link to their front page put up, though.
-no broken link
Well, *that* didn't take long to Slashdot.
Still, here's a little snippet from the page I was reading before it died:
The iGesture Pad gives you unprecedented control of graphical objects using gestures while providing you with the same functionality of the mouse. The iGesture Pad is thin enough to pack along with your notebook computer and it is a perfect mouse or track ball replacement for your desktop system. It works equally well with either hand.
They way they show this thing being used, you spend as much time making sign-language-like gestures to perform computer commands as you do pointing and dragging your finger around.
On one hand, I think this would be a cool idea, but on the other I wonder how much more or less stress having to effectively communicate in a sign language would be than using a mouse to accomplish the same tasks.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
'Elias said people often think that speech recognition systems will become the ultimate user interface. "Voice commands are good for many things but terrible for other things," Elias said, adding he believes there are inherent problems with a speech-only interface.
"If you want to test this claim, you can do so with a perfect speech recognition system-another human being," Elias said. "Put somebody in front of your computer and try to do your work by issuing voice commands to him. You'll quickly find that many common tasks are difficult to do using speech, even though your 'computer interface' understands you perfectly."'
It's there a flaw in the argument here?
This is trying to use a UI designed to use a keyboard and a mouse by using speech instead. Wouldn't a system that was intended to use speech recognition be designed around that idea? I'd think that would cause it to have a completly different interface.
What he describes is like trying to navigate a mouse driven interface with a keyboard when it hasn't been designed to use a keyboard at all. Or maybe a better example, it's like trying to type a letter using your mouse to click on a onscreen keyboard. It's just not how the UI was designed to be driven.
--Ty
UD researchers develop revolutionary computer interface technology
Sept. 27, 2002--University of Delaware researchers have developed a revolutionary computer interface technology that promises to put the bite on the traditional mouse and mechanical keyboard.
"We have developed a technology that goes well beyond the mouse and mechanical keyboard," John Elias, UD professor of electrical and computer engineering, said.
Elias and Wayne Westerman, UD visiting assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, have been working on the new interface for about five years and are now marketing their iGesture product through a company called FingerWorks.
The project started as a doctoral thesis by Westerman, who was then a UD graduate student working with Elias.
The FingerWorks name fits because the technology uses a touch pad and a range of finger motions to communicate commands and keys to the computer. To open a file, you rotate your hand as if opening a jar; to zoom or de-zoom, you expand or contract your hand.
Elias said the communication power of their system is "thousands of times greater" than that of a mouse, which uses just a single moving point as the main input. Using this new technology, two human hands provide 10 points of contact, with a wide range of motion for each, thus providing thousands of different patterns, each of which can mean something different to the computer.
While much about the computer has changed over the last three decades-greater power, faster speeds, more memory-what has not changed is the user interface.
"For what it was invented for, the mouse does a good job," Elias said. "People accept the mouse and the mechanical keyboard because that's the way it is. But there are limitations in terms of information flow. There is so much power in the computer, and so much power in the human, but the present situation results in a communications bottleneck between the two."
Elias and Westerman have a better idea. "I believe we are on the verge of changing the way people interact with computers," Elias said. "Imagine trying to communicate with another human being using just a mouse and a keyboard. It works, but it is slow and tedious.
"This is not just a little step in improving the mouse, this is the first step in a new way of communicating with the computer through gestures and the movements of your hands. This is, after all, one of the ways humans interact."
Elias said he could envision in the next 10 years "a very complex gestural language between man and machine."
The system is a multi-touch, zero force technology, Elias said, meaning the gestures and movements use all the fingers in a light and subtle manner.
Because of that, the system has a second major advantage over the mouse and mechanical keyboard because it can greatly reduce stress injuries such as tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome attributed to traditional computer work.
The company markets both stand-alone touch pads and touch pads built into
nonmechanical keyboards. In the keyboards, the keys overlap the touch pad so the operator does not have to move his hands when switching between typing and using the mouse. Rather, everything can be done in a smoother flow of hand motions.
Elias explained the touch pad acts like a video camera, recording the objects touching its surface. An embedded microprocessor then applies an algorithmic process to convert those touches into commands understood by the computer.
"To observers watching somebody use multi-touch, it looks a little like magic,"
Elias said, illustrating his point on a computer in Evans Hall. "People see lots of things happening on the computer screen but very little hand motion is observed."
He said the system has been designed so the gestures used make sense for the operation being performed. For instance, you cut text with a pinch and paste it with a flick.
Eventually, he said, the computer password could be a gesture known only to the user.
Elias said people often think that speech recognition systems will become the ultimate user interface. "Voice commands are good for many things but terrible for other things," Elias said, adding he believes there are inherent problems with a speech-only interface.
"If you want to test this claim, you can do so with a perfect speech recognition system-another human being," Elias said. "Put somebody in front of your computer and try to do your work by issuing voice commands to him. You'll quickly find that many common tasks are difficult to do using speech, even though your 'computer interface' understands you perfectly."
Using hand and finger motion to input commands is, for many tasks, much more effective than trying to explain what you want to do in words, he said.
The system is being used at several work stations in Evans Hall and the reaction is largely favorable. It is something of a challenge for some workers, Elias said, because it is like learning a new language.
Susan Foster, UD vice president of information technologies, said she is impressed with the interface and plans to adopt it for use at several computer sites around campus.
"The device is the result of new thinking about the 'bandwidth' that constrains the physical interaction between operator and computer," Foster said. "It capitalizes on human gestures, which are easy to understand and execute. Once learned, like other motor skills, they are readily retained. The assistive qualities of the device also make it quite useful for those with limitations on upper extremity use."
The plug-and-play device, which requires no special software, should be of particular interest to programmers, graphic designers and editors, Foster said, and she is recommending they consider making use of a new technology that was "born and bred at UD and under continuing development here."
The University of Delaware is an equity partner in FingerWorks.
For more on FingerWorks, see the web site at [www.fingerworks.com].
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Yep, definitely possible. It uses capacitance to figure out when your fingers get close - down to a micron or two (if I recall).
Finally, my favorite one-fingered gesture can be used to choose windows from my GRUB menu.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Some laptop touchpads seem to work independent of the force applied. You can push as hard as you want with a pen, etc and nothing happens. A fairly light brush of the finger and the mouse moves. I'd assume it's based on energized contact, heat sensing, or something else that differs between human skin and inanimate objects poking the touchpad
I can think of one gesture I use all the time while using my computer...it's not really a command, but it does tend to simplify things.
This would be great for browsers...
making a fist and moving the hand in an up-and-down motion will go to www.persiankitty.com
extending only the middle finger on the left hand will go to www.riaa.com
extending only the middle finger on the right hand will go to www.mpaa.com
extending both middle fingers will send you to www.microsoft.com
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Maybe instead of zero force, they USE the Force. They've got thousands of Midocholorians trapped in the pad...
*waves hand* You will open Mozilla to Slashdot...
isn't this a dream come true? now you can play star trek and have your computer react at your movements when you just smoothly touch the keyboard... wow :)
ALso, I can only imagine IF such keyboard becomes wide spread, how many beautiful UI would be designed in the free software community.. it's just a matter of adding new "meta" things to the "mouse" movements...
(I want to kill -9 applications by closing my fist like the Emperor in Star Wars - the Return of the Jedi.. "we will kill them...")
why in the free software..? because I'm quite sure that a UI for a closed-source OS will take much longer time to spread - or just much more money.
cool.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
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?
"This is not just a little step in improving the mouse, this is the first step in a new way of communicating with the computer through gestures and the movements of your hands. This is, after all, one of the ways humans interact."
This thing is going to be *HUGE* in Italy.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Anyone remember seeing that laser keyboard a while back? A little device drew out keyboard on your desk in red light, and where you broke the beam was how it determined what key you had hit, really cool idea. Don't know if I could get to used to it thought without the clickity-clickity.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
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.
From the UD article:
Elias explained the touch pad acts like a video camera, recording the objects touching its surface. An embedded microprocessor then applies an algorithmic process to convert those touches into commands understood by the computer.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
I can see the porn industry jumping to adopt THIS technology!
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."
To split this hair properly: the device is zero force as in "zero _additional_ force". I.e. other than the force needed to move your finger by itself, through whatever medium you happen to be in (had better be air, though ;-), the device needs no additional force. Or one that is so incredibly small you'ld never be able to measure it.
Strictly speaking, even a capacitive sensor would need *some* force, because entering the finger into the electric field must change its configuration to be detectable, and thus require some force, either on the way in or out. But if that force is two orders of magnitude smaller than that needed to overcome biological friction of your finger joints, that's "zero" for all practical means and purposes.
While I'm sure others have mentioned some novel uses, how about a 'killer app' for this technology? Why not finger painting? The only problem I see is that I don't know exactly where the processing is done... Does the device itself turn pinch/flick into cut/paste or does the device do a little processing and have the computer figure out what the gesture was? (I'm thinking that most of the processing goes on inside the device itself, since it says at the end of the article that it is plug-and-play and requires no special software. Perhaps it is just a keyboard/mouse to the computer?)
... or not.
r ce.htm
This is still pretty cool, just imagine playing something like the Best. Fighting Game. Ever. (Soul Calibur, IMO) using gestures instead of 'cycle-quarter left, x+y'. You could have hand-fu instead of finger-foo. hehe... Maybe I should trademark hand-fu.
What about other hand-tracking technologies? When gestures are mentioned, I think of the PowerGlove (or DataGlove, depending) and then I think of the Nintendo U-Force controller-thing. http://www.nesplayer.com/database/accessories/ufo
Who knows, it could be cool. (Maybe I should read the previous article, too.)
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University of Delaware's webpage
/. I wish you could also promote my other primary information source,
I'm glad to see this wonderful source of information being featured on
Bakersfield Community College Gazette.
Best Windows Freeware
I like my interfaces old-school. Dials and knobs, please.
Wah!
I have their Stealth programmer's QWERTY keyboard. It's nice. I got it when my mousing hand was starting get some lovely RSI symptoms.
/.ed.
The gestures make web browsing very pleasant. The gestures they picked for common operations are quite intuitive, and you end up not even having to think about how you're gesturing. It's quite similar to the lack of thought required to hit your favorite hotkey sequence, but it feels a little more natural.
It's also quite nice not having to move my hands at all to switch from typing to mousing. Even without gestures, this features is very helpful, especially if you type with your keyboard on your lap.
But now to the bad part (and the reason why the gestures are essential): it's all a flat surface. There's almost no tactile feedback. There are little bumps on the home row so you can find your place, but that's it. It's extraordinarily easy to get disoriented if you don't watch your hands.
As far as the folks at FingerWorks are aware, people have only gotten up to 60-70 wpm on their keyboards. (Last I checked I had gotten up to 55.) I cruise at 120 on a mechanical keyboard, so for intense typing, I still fall back to my standard keyboard. But for most of the non-coding time in front of the computer, the Stealth is great.
To give you an idea of some of the gestures (and how on earth this thing works):
- A single finger tap is a keypress
- Two adjacent fingers down + dragging moves the mouse
- Two adjacent fingers tapping is a mouse click
- All five fingers down simultaneously is rest position -- this is how you can reorient your hands on home row without typing gobbledygook
Those are the biggies. You can read the full list of their gestures on their web site. I'd link to it, but it appears to be
I do have to say that the folks at FingerWorks are incredibly responsive. I complained that their sensitivity to double-keys was too low (it regularly ignored my second "f" on something like "off"), they sent me a firmware update within a day which fixed it.
So they're definitely tweaking things and very helpful.
Oh, and did I mention that it supports Linux, Mac OS, and Windows? And it has gestures for emacs actions and other common Linux activities.
Require zero force to work with? Is that even physically possible?
Sure!
I use zero force at my job already.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Good idea, but I wonder about folks with disabilities.
Take a look at the usual GUI: for example, it's very difficult for a blind person to use Windoze.
The article talks about 10 points of contact (i.e. fingers) instead of just 1 (the mouse). What of people who don't have normal hands? If this catches on, would not most interfaces suddenly need their users to be able-bodied?
-Eldurbarn
I myself, however, used to use a chord style keyboard, and found that a specific chord worked well for some things (int, char, while, HTML etc) it was painfully slow for the things like &this and *pThat. People (other than us) seem to think that a keyboard should adapt to fit English.
Programmers would probably prefer a keyboard done in a slightly different language :)
Now where the heck is my if{ key...
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
Yes. Its definitly possible, and in my case preferred. I crushed my wrist many moons ago and typing on a normal keyboard for extended times really hurts.
I have the touchstream LP and its very easy on that wrist. No pressure/force is needed by the fingers which in turn keeps the stress down my wrist. (you can only guess what other activities are prohibited by this "handicap")
I wouldn't recommend this thing for anybody impatient, even after 6 months with it I still can't touchtype very fast. It also makes some standard key combos (alt-f4) a bit difficult. And forget gaming with it - the repeat rate isn't high enough to allow it. The mouse emulation isn't good enough for it either.
If you work against a mechanical resistance, one of the two muscles actually has to do less work because the necessary opposition is alredy being supplied by the mechanism. Mechanical resistance also provides tactile feedback.
If there is no resistance, you have to provide it yourself. And if you tap away on a hard surface, it's even worse: the force gets delivered all in one strike, as opposed to gradually, as it is with well-designed keyboard. Touch pads, for all their sleek design, are probably the worst among the common mouse replacements.
For all these reasons, keyboard, pianos, buttons, and other devices have a certain degree of resistance deliberately designed into them. I suspect that a zero-force input device will not help with RSI and may actually aggravate it. But whatever effect it may have for RSI, I doubt a zero-force input device is going to be comfortable and efficient.
http://www.meetthegeeks.org/ourreview/fingerworksi gesture/
that why i like the ms natural keyboard, i can tell right where my hands are. What i would like is a flat keyboard like this one, blank. Position my fingers on it at a comfortable point, close my eyes, and start typing a typing test. the machine looks and sees where I put my fingers for each letter, rather then me having to reprogram the movements. Put on sitcker whatnot for the markers afterwards. Instant perfect touch typing, taylored to my individual style.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
That zero-force prevents RSI. There is also no evidence that large-force is a cause of RSI.
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.
This keyboard is the opposite of the keyboard in the article. It has buckling metal springs, and makes a very loud CLICK (more appropriately, BANG) whenever you hit a key. If you put enough pressure on a key, it goes down all the way to the bottom, but the key won't move at all until you've put enough pressure on it. This means you always know whether or not you've hit a key, whereas this is not possible with plastic-type keyboards.
Do this: type a paragraph into a text editor, without looking at the screen and without looking at your keyboard (you can backspace, ^W, etc. if you make a mistake, but you can look at neither the monitor nor the keyboard). See how many mistakes you make. I make ZERO mistakes on my Model M, since I know exactly which keys I've hit (eg, proper feedback). I often have great fun by staring blankly at people when I'm firing off an email (using vi, which is perfect for terrifying the non-unix types).
The Model M improves my typing speed substantially. People cower in fear when I'm typing in the same room as they are, as it sounds like an assault rifle (I type very fast).
Never had carpal tunnel, and I've been doing this most of my life (8 or more hours a day of C coding and unix administration for the past few years). Don't know what my secret is, other than that I move my arms around (keyboard in lap, under desk on keyboard tray, on top of desk, behind my head like Jimi Hendrix, etc.).
I love my Model M. Only keyboard which gives it any competition is the Sun Type 5, but I no longer work with Suns very often.
I've found someplace that sells these things: $329
They also have a picture and a non-slashdotted web page.
Uh... well, it was anyhow.
You get the same with an IBM Trackpoint keyboard, and the IBM keyboard have really nice tactile feedback.
(Note that the pointing stick on Toshiba and some other keyboards works nowhere near as well--IBM really put a lot of work into Trackpoint.)
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."
They've got thousands of Midocholorians trapped in the pad...
Slavery was banned in the 19th century, smash your keyboards now and free those little things!
I just want one so that when I'm browsing the web it looks more like I'm working some incredible incantation.
-
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."
Interesting...
I have been a user of the old IBM Olivettis for years, but my last one broke down last year. (Do I really need the Q and W??)
I have noticed a considerable amount of hand fatigue using the POS that came with my computer. Especially in my right hand.
However, I also know as a guitarist that clamping the neck too tightly is a large cause of RSI's. (Also holding it too low)
Nothing to add, just interesting...
Jason
This presents a really interesting concept.. if the surface of the keyboard could change based on whatever activity you happened to be doing. For typing and other "normal" tasks it could display a standard keyboard, but for the "finger painting" suggestion above the "hotspots" of the keyboard could change to a color palette and brush sizes. Or games could have specific interfaces tailored to that game. The possibilities are endless.
I always wished that a face-based or head-based interface on the keyboard would become popular, because then the boss could not tell the difference between sleeping and typing.
Table-ized A.I.
Damn, how cool is it to see your old professor have a hand in inventing something? Maybe I'll have to swing by the old computer lab on my next visit...
------
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All five fingers down simultaneously is rest position -- this is how you can reorient your hands on home row without typing gobbledygook.
So what if you don't use home row in the first place? I don't (my hands tend to rest in a bit of an arc above the home row keys); in fact, I think home row is one of the leading contributors to RSI--how can you possibly hold your hands in such an unnatural position day in and day out? I sure can't.
I'm also sceptical - I worked with a guy who had RSI and had to be off work for 6 months. He told me that apparently one of the problems is not pressing the keys - it's the lifting of the finger afterwards which is the movement that causes the problems - hence you should use a nice springy keyboard. I think this is why people always pop up in these discussions and say how great those old IBM PC keyboards are (the ones with a sheet of steel in them which makes them so damn heavy).
Seems to me that this keyboard gives you no help whatsoever in this regard, but of course it depends how hard you have to 'press' a key to get it to register I guess.
Tim
Do yourself a huge favor. Go buy a split keyboard that feels "right" to you. Give it two weeks. You'll never go back.
God, I hate Microsoft. But their "natural" keyboards and oversized ergonomic mice are a godsend.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Zug zug!
Me too, I love work! I can stare at it all day.
that would at least partially explain the multi-hundred dollar price tag.
The Kinesis keyboard has done nothing less than save my career. While starting a company in 1995 the long work days took a toll on my hands. After seeing doctor after doctor and specialist after specialist the best advice they could offer was "type less." Thank you very much, but I had deadlines to meet.
Everything changed when I splurged $300 for the Kinesis Contour keyboard. There are four major differences between this keyboard and the others out there, and together they make typing feel to me like I'm running down hill.
1. Separated "key wells" (you have to see the picture to understand) which allow a much more natural hand position.
2. Keys are lined up directly above each other (i.e. the T key is directly north of the G key, not up-to-the-left). This makes your fingers extend out and back, not out and back and side to side.
3. The key wells are curved, which brings the keys on the upper and lower parts of the keybard closer to your fingertips. This is probably the single largest factor contributing to the "running down hill" feeling.
4. Thumbs. Your thumbs are the two strongest digits on your hands. I don't know about you, but the way I used to type I would only use one of my thumbs, and only for one key (the space bar). My left thumb sat dormant. What a waste! Additionally, two of my most actively used fingers were my pinkeys due to the RET, Backspace and Control keys. Guess which fingers are your weakest? On the Kinesis, the thumbs get the most commonly used keys. I've got a couple of buttons re-mapped (due mostly to Emacs usage patterns) so the four major thumb buttons are Control, Alt, Return and Space. I couldn't live any other way.
Give it a try. You won't regret it.
Kinesis home page
-Pez
I know there are several posts here proclaiming the virtues of old IBM Ms and their springy keys...
I would pay a series sum of money for a USB "natural"-type split keyboard with those old-school spring keys.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
And can be programmed for more. Whats too bad however is that it costs a lot, and I'm fairly uncertain whether I would actually like to type on the darn thing.
I believe that I only ever really type with about six fingers : left index, left thumb only for Control and Alt, right index, right middle, right ring only for Enter and Shift, right thumb on Space.
Left middle will get used for typing Alt-F4, right ring gets used for typing Shift-number combos, left pinky does hit Control for Control-Alt-Delete, and I do use ALL of my fingers (except for right pinky), when I play Quake III.
I do not hunt and peck. I know exactly where all of the keys are (I don't look at the keyboard, except for maybe Shift-Number combos), and I get tremendously high scores on typing tests - I'm in the very high range on speed, and I'm quite good on accuracy - especially when coding. (Unfortunately, I'm a horrible speller.)
I guess that's what happens when you learn to type on a mini keyboard like the TRS-80 MC-12 Micro Color Computer. You don't have the "real" tacticile feedback that a keyboard is supposed to give you - it's more like trying to type on a TI-85 calculator, but the keys were at least in the proper locations - not alphabetical. *shudder* Cursed for life. I'll be typing this way for ever.
I've tried to learn to touch type, with my fingers in the proper locations, but my left hand really, honestly does better getting to roam all over the keyboard, and pecking away with my left index finer.
I made an experiment of myself, trying to go from "four-finger typing" to proper touch typing on Dvorak. I had some success, but I really, really didn't like the Dvorak layout for coding. It was fine for English, but bad for typing code - at least for me.
By the way, if I type on ANYTHING but a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro, I get really pissed, really quick.
Education is the silver bullet.
Yes this is all possible, but you have to sacrafice a mode to get it done.
I live in a giant bucket.