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AlphaGrip's 3D Keyboard Ready For Pre-Orders
bic2k writes "AlphaGrip has opened their doors to pre-orders this past week. (Previously mentioned here.) Press release can be found here. They look a lot like an xbox controller, but contains 42 buttons and a analog stick. Shows up as a standard USB keyboard and mouse. Has a USB expansion slot, which will possibly be used for wireless connectivity. They claim typing speeds of 50 WPM or better after a month or so. They're waiting for 5000 pre-orders before going to manufacturing, so it may be awhile before they actually ship these."
if you can really get the advertized 50wpm, this would be a great for a latop. I hate these damn compact keyboards and touchpads. It would be alot eaiser then carrying around a real keyboard, and it has a mouse joystick to boot.
404
I guess this is the opposite of the giant XBox controller fiasco then?
Seriously though, this would be great for a hacked XBox or PS2 Linux, but do they honestly think deskbound users will use it because "the AlphaGrip allows you to shift your body position frequently or even constantly without affecting your data input." I meam come on people, take a 5 minute break for gods' sake. Just get up and walk around or stretch. You don't need a $100 device to do it for you.
gadgetophile.com
The page is rather slashdotted right now, but I managed to get a glimpse. Looks like this thing is just in time for the Doom 3 mania, with more buttons than you can shake a boomstick at! Looks like quite the excellent Doom 3 controller to me, although an additional toggle joystick would help things more. And there's a Google cache right here. Finally, I also found this prototype design of what looks to be another model -- interesting stuff.
When I look at the pictures of that thing, I can't help but wonder how you're meant to grip it and type at the same time.
Similar to the problem I have with a mousewheel (I get a sore hand/finger from holding my finger above the wheel), I can imagine holding my fingers above the AlphaGrip's buttons while at the same time trying to grip the whole thing would be tendonitis city.
Anyone actually seen one of these in use and can confirm this for me?
gadgetophile.com
Also is anywone else reminded of an old product (maybe from 10 years ago?) called The Bat (at the bottom of that page)?
Rob
try doing that on a qwerty without a table or stand in front of you to put the keyboard on while stonding. Well I guess you could hang the keybord from your neck or something, but i'm pretty sure it will feel awkward as hell and you won't be moving around much then.
The makers of these keyboard replacements always act like learning an entirely new style of typing is so easy that we should be ashamed for even thinking for a moment that it'll be hard.
In reality, most of us have spent years and years learning to type on a standard keyboard. It's a specialized skill.
Moreover, as it DOES look like an X-Box controller, and as I know how ten hours of marathon gaming can kill my hands, I wonder how they can really be sure it's MORE comfortable. I mean, my keyboard may have little to reccomend it, but, worse comes to worse, I CAN type on it without having to grip anything (Mmmmm Carpal), which would be impossible with their keyboard.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
That and don't forget us vi users. That looks like a nightmare to mode switching unless it has a button for escape and :
:)
Ironically enough, one reason I love the japanese keyboard layout, the colon is it's own key, no shift.
The shifted letters over the numbers really messes with you when you are used to your paren's to be at 9 and 0, not 0 and -. That threw me off for months.
This may be off topic but I ache for the day someone will make a crossplatform (console/computer) FPS so that I can finally prove to my disbeleiving pals (and myself) that a good computer FPS player will always dominate a great console FPS player (each using their respective platforms). Sure you could hook up a gamepad to a computer and just play PC halo but then the console guys always fall back to "it doesn't have the same feel as an Xbox."
In high school typing class I was at 96WPM.
:)
When my ex-wife was in college, she was in a computer class, and they had a typing test, which after the test it would show the result. I got 102WPM and 99% accuracy. It was annoying that it considered a backspace an error, so it took me a couple tries to remember not to correct errors.
A couple years ago, a coworker brought a commercial typing test in to work, which said I was up to 104WPM at 100% accuracy.
Not that it really helps me much with work, I bang out several lines of code, and consider what I'm going to write next.
Do you have suggestions on typing speed tests. I like to see where I am occasionally.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The claim that QWERTY was designed to slow typists down to avoid jamming typewriters is misleading.
What the QWERTY system tries to maximize is alternating keystrokes with the left hand and the right hand - most common words alternate between right and left hands when typing. This stopped most jamming because jams most frequently occured when there were repetitive keystrokes on one side/one row/one column of the typewriter's keys.
This actually increased typing speed - many people are capable of speeds in great excess of 50 wpm. Also, though a lot of people hunt and peck, almost everyone who uses a computer in their job (whether it be a programmer or not) does touchtype, from sheer necessity. The amount of time it would take a slow typist to learn how to type 50 wpm on this device could easily be spent increasing their current typing speed to well over that on a regular keyboard.
get a trackball. I would love to get a Dvorak split with a trackball where my thumbs are (use one thumb to move the pointer, the other to click buttons).
The quadruple bucky strikes back!
English is easier said than done.
Damn, best Idea from an AC ever. I'm using a microsoft ergonomic, and that wristpad has enough room to drill a hole and put a trackball in there... The hardest part would be finding some nice buttons to use for the mouse buttons. All in all, doesn't sound very hard. Super glue and duct tape, Ohhh yeaaaahh!
A tachometer for the computer would be cool... "You are now typing 70 words per minute!" How awesome would that be...
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
There's little proof other than old wives tales about the Dvorak's superiority that prove that QWERTY was designed to slow typists down...
I don't quite get these odd keyboard configurations. They seem like more trouble (learning) than they are worth (a bit of comfort and speed).
I use a Typematrix. It's not significantly different from a regular keyboard, but it makes minor improvements that are very nice. I can go back to regular ones with no problem, which I don't believe you could do if you used this thing for an extended period of time.
Typematrix removes a few annoying features of regular keyboards. The keys are in a grid instead of staggered, shift is larger taking the place of the usual shift position and the caps lock, the enter and backspace keys are in the middle, and those are the major differences. No time spent learning to use a "futuristic design". But it is much nicer than a regular QWERTY. (Plus it has hardware dvorak support!)
Hmm...on the one hand, I have attacks on studies that show that Dvorak is an improvement over QWERTY as well as a couple of studies that show QWERTY to be superior.
On the other hand I have my own personal experience in switching to Dvorak where, despite 10+ years of QWERTY use (~5 programming for a living), I was able to increase my own typing speed in approximately three weeks (was 90wpm with QWERTY, above 100wpm with Dvorak.)
So which should I believe?
If you want a true argument against Dvorak, it's that everyone else uses QWERTY. My QWERTY typing skills have dropped to about 50wpm now. Given how often I have to use other people's computers, I wish I could have maintained my previous rate.
Right now I am typing with both hands on my laptop, in the dark. I cannot see the keys. Sometimes I choose to type with one hand, albeit slowly, but it works when your other hand is holding a kid, or eating ice cream. Other times I stand up and key in letters one at a time using a single finger.
This keyboard offers none of this flexability. Obviously someone thought this to be a good idea, but didn't realize that it should be left at that. They need to meet up with the No Hands Mouse people. http://www.footmouse.com/
Why would I want to go from xx WPM down to 0 when my only option is to use both hands.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
I'm pretty sure it does help you, it's some kind of direct brain-computer connection.
To get a feeling how it's like without that, try switching to Dvorak for a few hours (if you're using QWERTY usually, that is). When I did that, I felt totally helpless, because I had to search for every single key (like non-typists have to do on every layout). When you have to concentrate on typing, there's not much time left to think about your program.
You won't look cool. You will look apparently look like this