Slashdot Mirror
Review Of Upcoming Projection Keyboards
malpern writes "I've written a review of upcoming virtual keyboards based on published reports. There are pictures, descriptions, and details for each of the four major manufactures (Virtual Devices, Developer VKB, Canesta, and Senseboard Technologies)."
Some of those toys were meant to be released last year, but I have not seen them available. I really could use the wireless/bluetooth one at the end, as my space I have available for my computers is being reduced by another human being born into the world.
Anyway my *icrosoft ergo keyboard is looking very tattered and worn out!
`find / -name "*your_base*" -exec chown us:us {} \;`
the feel of keyboards which is important too. I don't think this will pick up especially the senseboard ones (the rest atleast have a keyboard image). Type into thin air !! People around may take you for being psychotic or something. Plus I would really like someone to do this: "Now where is that Enter key?" heh heh heh.....
I hope you don't actually have to touch the surface that it's being projected on. A couple weeks back somebody posted a link to a modified typewriter keyboard to use on a computer because his wife's fingers reacted badly to the jarring motion of using a touchtype keyboard. Imagine how jarring it would be to repeatedly slam your fingers against such a hard surface...
sig.
I have been waiting for something like this for a long time now. I have keyboard preferences that many people deem odd (Sun 3 keyboard, QWERTY layout, essentially), and this looks like the answer to my problem.
I also like that at least one of the devices will have RS232-C output. That will make connection to older devices a lot easier, and drivers easy to write.
Does anyone have any idea when these will hit the Canadian market? Sometimes we lag behind the US market, and other times we get it a week or two early.
unixkb.com -- articles on practical Unix issues.
hard surface!
display it on a pillow or any cushion.
Still, I'm excited by this technology. Now someone needs to marry it up with a similarly sized projection screen and we can have a computer with a full-sized screen and full sized keyboard that you can fit into your palm.
a world in progress...
We used to use noisy typewriters.
Now it is the traditional keyboard's time to face replacement.
It'll take a whole generation, no doubt, of people who were raised up on projection keyboards, before it becomes accepted the way keyboards now are.
It's a radical new concept and we technocrats should at least have some kind of open mind about it.
Although there are nagging issues.. such as whether or not those keystrokes will be nore easily interfered with or intercepted...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I don't think this is gonna fly. While yes, it's a great idea, it also has a good amount of cons to it. First of all is the aethetics of it. The thing about normal (qwerty) keyboards is that you can modify angle, etc. But these are at minimum height.
Then there is the one which didn't even have a visualization. Then you'd have to worry about where the center of your keyboard is, etc.
THen there is the sight factor, how would people react so see a person typing on a projection?
Next is the fact that it HAS to have a surface, an advantage you don't need for fold-up keyboards or using the pen-on-screen approach.
What I think they should do is make them similar to DDR pads. Seriously, You make them small, they'll have plenty of room for keys, you can fold them up so you have portability. Then you can have just a thin foldup sheet of some sort of stiff material for support so you can use it on your lap while being on a subway or something like that.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
If you're going to find a niche in market like this its got to be disrutive. And this is definitely disruptive.
On the Eco front, think of how much less plastic that won't end up in a landfill!
This scores on two fronts, as well as being, well, pretty damn cool! I'd love to be one of the first people using one of these on the train to work.
Its one damn thing before another. (Dick Bird 1999)
Actually, I would argue that the opposite is true. I would say that these are probably better for your hands. I would imagine that with these you would not have to press so hard on to a surface for it to register a keypress, and so therefore you're merely tapping the surface, not drilling your finger into it, which would make RSI worse.
Of course, many people are already use to using the normal keyboard with tactile feedback, so their typing ability would go down.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
While this wouldn't be so practical for work (except for maybe switching keyboard nationality at the press of a button), how badass would that be for gaming?
Actually, it may be extremely practical for work, just not in the way everyone (or even the manufacturers, apparent) thinks. I see this sort of thing as being really useful as an extra, programmable keyboard. I mean, I could honestly do without the keypad most of the time, and surely I'm not the only one who remember when software relied heavily on function key template maps. You could virtualize those things and, in fact, could provide a number of custom layouts for macros or toolbar items as well. Just in typing this reply, I can see the use of being able to call up a special HTML keyboard that would easily allow me to tag a selection (an <i> key, a <p> key, etc.). Really, these people should forget about the stagnant PDA market and focus on providing a virtualized interface for the desktop market.
While this may be a arguably nice toy for people who have to search for every key, it seems to be quite a drawback for those who can type "properly".
I need the minuscle feedback when moving over the keys to have body memory kick so I can find the keys instinctively. When I type, I don't have to think where the key is, all done autonomously.
Try it with a piece of paper with a printed keyboard on it. Not a chance to type blindly (which I do all of the time), and you won't get up to any decent speed even with looking at the keys.
But thats exactly what I'd require from a "next generation" keyboard for PDAs and the like, if I want to enter text at a slow pace there are already a lot of viable alternatives.
At lot of the comments here seems to forget that these new types of keyboards aren't meant for replacing your good old trusted keyboard. As the article states it's a product for PDAs and other small devices.
The goal is to make something better than what we have today, i.e. Palm's Graffiti or T9-systems found on cell phones.
Personally I'm really looking forward to something like this, because I think it would open up a whole new world for my Pocket PC.
Having converted to one of those split 'natural' keyboards (now I don't get carple-tunnel anymore) on both my home and work systems, and the fact that I touch type - and have difficulty keeping on my home keys *with* feedback, I find these virtual keyboards of limited usefulness.
Yeah, they might be good in limited applications - and probably more for the hunt and peck crowd, as someone else has mentioned. They are not for me.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain