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Review Of Upcoming Projection Keyboards

Posted by timothy on from the easier-than-fingernail-implants dept.

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)."

27 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Pain and Suffering by sholden · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Such keyboards would be great with PDAs and other portable devices.

    But I suspect that using one constantly (such as for you desktop machine at work) would produce lots of pain and suffering. Banging your fingers on the probably hard solid no-give surface of a desk all day probably wouldn't be great fun. Stopping your fingers before they hit the desk would be a quick route to RSI land... I guess you could put somethign soft where your fingers will hit, but then why not just use a nice clickity-clackity keyboard...

    On the plus side, it'd make those old games where you have to push two keys in quick succession over and over again (Summer Games for example) much easier.

    On that note, did anyone else build a 'joystick' for the C64 out of 2 nails some wire and a screw driver, just so they could get really fast times in the 100 meter sprint on that game?

    1. Re:Pain and Suffering by hatchet · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You have never played guitar eh?
      Your fingers will harden in few weeks and you won't feel pain anymore.

  2. RSI Maybe by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You would develop some pretty nasty RSI issues if you used this a lot...but who's going to do that. I think the purpose of the technology is to allow you to bang out a quick (and irrelevent) SlashDot comment while on the move. This would be great on the train home from work for example. You could reply to all your email of the day in otherwise unused time - then spend the 30 minutes you normally take to email people with your family instead.

    --
    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    1. Re:RSI Maybe by atomicdragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Depending on how much you need to move your fingers for these to register a hit, it would seem it should reduce RSI. Instead of having to press down a key, you only need to move your finger a small amount. I imagine as the technology improves a little, that it could be better for your hands than normal keyboards. I seem to picture it not as tapping the hard surface (something that may be damaging as other comments mention) but as merely wiggling your fingers a little, since it should require no pressure. On the other hand, how well you can well you can type without any such pressure may be a bigger issue.

  3. Thin and dated by Ydna · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article seems to be a little dated. There's not publication date, but several references are almost a year old. Details are thin, but honest for a product that's yet to see the light of day.

    --

    "The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me

  4. Multiple keyboard setups would rule... by httpamphibio.us · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd like to see something like this where you could switch between keyboard layouts like QWERTY, Dvorak, Typematrix, Kinesis, etc...

    --
    sig.
    1. Re:Multiple keyboard setups would rule... by kwoo · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I'd like to see something like this where you could switch between keyboard layouts like QWERTY, Dvorak, Typematrix, Kinesis, etc...

      Frankly, I'd settle for being able to switch Control and CapsLock. Perhaps move Escape and Backspace, back-tick and tilde.

      Deleting/disabling keys would be nice, too. I didn't check any of the pictures too much, but it might be nice to be able to disable/delete the arrow keys if they get in the way.

      --
      unixkb.com -- articles on practical Unix issues.
    2. Re:Multiple keyboard setups would rule... by drunkmonk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not only mutiple layouts, but also multiple languages. There's nothing worse than being stuck in Moscow and having to use a Cyrillic keyboard, even if you touch-type it's distracting. With this you could, in theory, just switch right back to English.

  5. A couple of issues by Pastey · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There are a few things that I think would become annoying very quickly about projection keyboards.

    The first would be the lack of tactile response. After all, your desktop or any other hard surface would become uncomfortable after just a few minutes IMHO.

    The second would be the lack of any position designators - i.e. the 'f' and 'j' keys. Most 10 fingered typers probably don't even think about it anymore, but it's very easy to lose your place without them. I suspect this would become very annoying if taking notes in class during a lecture or in a business meeting.

    As far as a good portable keyboard for a PDA, my money is on the new Stowaway XT. It's been getting really good reviews/previews.

    Anyone been lucky enough to play around with one yet?

    1. Re:A couple of issues by Boiotos · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Your second point is a good one: I need something to keep those index fingers properly located. It seems to me, though, that a 70mm square patch with reusable adhesive on one side and a rough surface on the other would do the trick nicely. You'd stick them where the 'f' and 'j' keys are projected. 3M would give away six of them with the keyboard dealy; to buy more you'd go to Office Depot and pay through the nose :-)

  6. How did they resolve shadowing? by hcdejong · · Score: 4, Interesting

    i.e. what happens when one finger taps a key that is in the shadow of another finger? The review doesn't mention this.

  7. Obvious problem by bertok · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I seriously doubt anyone could use these at full-speed, because there is no tactile feelback! The whole point of touch-typing is to type by feel, not by reading the keys. Poking at the keys one at a time is possibly worse than handwriting recognition speeds, and vastly inferior to speech recognition. I pity the company that invested $20 million into this useless novelty item.

    1. Re:Obvious problem by spongman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not talking about the home keys - of course you need a refernce for where to place your wrists, but after that you don't need any feedback. The fact that you can type 80 word/minute implies that your fingers are already committted to pressing the key before contact is made. So you're not feeling for the keys, the only thing you feel is the downward motion of the key and perhaps (if you're not a professional typist) somtimes the edge of the key if you hit slightly off-center. I have typed on a touch-sensitive keyboard, and while it's initially slightly disconcerting not having the keys there it's not the problem that you make it out to be. It's just a case of look, find the home keys, place the wrists, type.

  8. Usability? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm rather sceptic about the usability of these things. First, there's no "feel" in it, you just tap the table. You cannot feel where the keys are. Second, I think there will be a lot of typos, because of the sensor. Third, fingers will be on the way, typing upper row letters/numbers you aren't able to see lower rows.

  9. A round-up of press releases, not a review. by ColmanReilly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He hasn't used any of these, so it doesn't quite count as a review. Has anyone seen any of these devices work? So far I can't think of any actual hands-on reviews of them.

  10. Not convinced by captainclever · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Looks like an innovative idea, but I like to have something tangible i can touch; i like to feel the key being depressed so that i know i typed it. i don't (can't) type perfectly, and i'm sure i sometimes press a key that would be obscured by the front of my hand.- pressing the space bar with my thumb, for example? i'm sure that would be out of view of the projector in front of me.
    Maybe a good idea if you need to do lots of typing on a PDA, but who actually does? the screen's are too small to format anything anyway. PDAs are good for short notes but not inputing loads of text.
    Thats my view anyway. not intended as a troll, i'm just not convinced.

    --
    Last.fm - join the social music revolution
  11. Mapability? by two_ply · · Score: 5, Interesting
    When I first saw this (here on slashdot actually) after my initial "well that's pretty cool" reaction something immediately popped into my mind:

    If the technology senses finger location then the layout of the keyboard should be irrelevant, leaving the door open for the keyboard layout to be rearranged virtually. 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?

    Load up UT 2005 and your keyboard layout changes to put a ton of extra keys around your direction arrows. Instead of trying to remember that Ctrl+P+2 balances your shields in Tie Fighter, you have a large "balance shields" key wherever you want it. RTS games always have somewhat unintuitive keyboard setups because they have so many keys... well imagine a soft/bouncy surface onto which a different specialized, user mappable, user configurable keyboard was projected for EACH app/game. I don't know if we'll see this right away... but I sure as hell want too.

  12. Maybe. by jetpack · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's a radical new concept and we technocrats should at least have some kind of open mind about it.

    But many of us technochrats still dislike the feel of laptop keyboards because they don't respond quite "right". I suspect these new virtual keyboards will take quite a bit of getting used to and won't be adpoted very quickly.

    Just a guess, of course.

    1. Re:Maybe. by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Except the Titanium PowerBook G4 Keyboard.

      That has to be the damn best keyboard on the planet. I just cannot get enough of it!

      I wish i could plug this keyboard into my desktop PC at work.

      I just can't put up with normal keyboards anymore. Nothing is as nice and sexy as the powerbook keyboard.

      D.

      --
      You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
  13. Touch Typing... by MosesJones · · Score: 2, Interesting


    As someone who has learnt to touch type pretty successfully, which makes a huge difference to the way I work, I can't see these things being any use to me at all. You need to feel the gaps between the keys to indicate where they are. Sure for the "hunt and peck" mob out there this is a nice gadget to play with, but for a techy on the move who can actually type its not going to be useful.

    I'd prefer a tiny keyboard (I can touch type on a Nokia Communicator, its just about adjusting slightly) than one with no tactile feel.

    I understand why this will be great for somepeople, but for for speed typists this isn't very useful. Now a tactile glove might work a treat, well two of them obviously.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  14. By the way. by djupedal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    All these comments about drumming, touching hard or soft surfaces, typing in shadows or accounting for tactile feedback...

    These projected, virtual keyboards have little to do with drumming, touching hard or soft surfaces, typing in shadows or accounting for tactile feedback...they have everything to do with motion, however.

    The concept is really that simple...don't get lost in trying to overlay traditional ideas about traditional keyboards onto what is a new concept that must be tried out in person before giving an otherwise off-base opinion.

    1. Re:By the way. by melonman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      These projected, virtual keyboards have little to do with drumming, touching hard or soft surfaces, typing in shadows or accounting for tactile feedback...they have everything to do with motion, however.

      But you still have conservation of momentum. If you start your finger moving to trip the sensor, I can only see three options as to what happens next:

      1. Your finger stops because it hits a hard surface, which is likely to get painful after a while
      2. Your finger stops because you use muscular control to stop it, which is going to place different strains on your hands (don't ask me whether it's better or worse than a standard keyboard)
      3. Your finger chops straight through the table, which gets you a part in a Kung Fu movie

      Excluding the third option, the other two sound like they are going to be a pain, literally. But surely the point is that these keyboards are designed for occasional use, not for 8 hour a day typing? I can't imagine that typing up War and Peace on most PDAs would be that great either, but then that's not what most people use them for.

      --
      Virtually serving coffee
  15. How do they tell when you hit a key? by Inflatable+Hippo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't think of a scheme that seems reliable.

    I saw some of these a CEBIT last year and the projector is a few inches above the desk and angled down at about 45deg. Didn't get to try any though.

    You've got to interrupt the beam of several letters just to "press" one key, so it must be pretty "smart" just to work that out.

    I guess it can assume it's on a flat surface but if it doesn't know how fat your fingers are then it doesn't know when you've touched the table either.

    Maybe there's a secondary scanner at table height that returns the x/y of anything that interrupts the beam?

  16. Reminds me of that keyboard in TRON... by Peter+Clary · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In TRON, Ed Dillinger (David Warner) had a large, black glass desk in his office. The keyboard was a glowing projection on the desk surface from inside the desk. It was very cool, but I had exactly the same thoughts about tactile feedback that many people are expressing here.

    Peter.

  17. carpal tunnel? by Jethro+On+Deathrow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would think that this makes it worse? I was under the impression that tapping your fingers on a hard surface was exactly what you should *not* do.

    There was a previous article about a guy that hacked a typewriter to function as a keyboard for this very reason.

  18. Page blocked ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "Forbidden, this page (http://www.alpern.org/weblog/stories/2003/01/09/p rojectionKeyboards.html) is categorized as: Sex. "

    (according to Smartfilter)

    Since when slashdot links to pr0n pages ?

  19. Bah... by bahwi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Give me a TouchStream anyday. =) I don't want stupid red light, black with print is the way to go. Same effect, but no red light. I can see where these projection keyboards would be useful though, but I can see where they wouldn't be (work, school, home). Of course, on an airplane, travelling, etc, it'd be great. Just imagine a screen, and that's your laptop. Oops.

    Still, it's good technology, even if not applied in the best sense here. Imagine your house is X10
    controlled(sans the pop-ups, of course). You pull out one of these things with custom buttons you did on your PC. Hit the lights that you want on/off and the wireless transmitter sends it back to the server to do it. Or you could have these 'magic' buttons built into a painting or art(-wannabe) object, and access them anytime anywhere, but keep them out of place. (Yes, this example took the technology and not the specific use of the projection keyboards).