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Microsoft Hardware Demos Pressure-Sensitive Keyboard
Krystalo writes to tell us that Microsoft hardware has an interesting demo of a pressure-sensitive keyboard they have designed. While there are no currently announced plans to turn this into a shipping product, there are many cool uses that one could imagine a device like this providing. "The device will be put to use in the first annual Student Innovation Contest in Victoria, Canada, where contestants will be supplied with a keyboard prototype and challenged with developing new interactions for it. Contestants will demo their creations and attendees will vote for their favorite at the conference on October 5. $2,000 prizes will be given to the authors of programs deemed as the most useful, the best implementation, and the most innovative."
light pressure for lower case 'a', harder pressure for upper case 'A', and abrupt spikes in pressure for expletives "#$@^%^!".
Now keyboards can report abuse when I beat the shit out of it when I get pissed off
Yes, yes and more yes. The one thing I've always wanted in a keyboard. No more walk/run modifier key or jerky steering in driving/flying games. Yay!
Can't believe no one has made a musical keyboard comment yet...On the other hand, it seems we just keep getting closer and closer to LCARS.
Rubber dome keys, keys do different things based on different pressures, extra useless features, won't be hard to type on at all.
i"M nOT sUrE WHat yoU'Re tRyInG tO sAY> CoulD yOu BE MOre SPecIFiC?
No, it is PRESSURE SENSITIVE. It will upcase letters when you press THEM HARD.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
How about the students sit on their ideas and market them when the keyboard comes out?
Should be worth more then a lousy $2000, especially considering the fact that the students will have NO intellectual property rights once they submit through the contest.
Just another way for MS to steal ideas, patent them and then pocket all the profits.
On another note, I wonder what MS employees think about their employer opting to go outside the company for ideas rather then feed their employees families.
aha! finally a keyboard that can make everything uppercase when i'm shouting at you!! i mean SHOUTING AT YOU!!!!
They really need a better name.
Perhaps simply calling it "Variable Pressure Keyboard"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No, they would just add more features to emacs to take advantage of it.
"(light press)Meta-(hard press)Ctrl-(medium press)Shift-(hard press)C" automatically spell and grammar checks your document while giving you a light foot massage, but "(hard press)Meta-(medium press)Ctrl-(light press)Shift-(medium press)C" launches the missiles. That sort of thing.
A keyboard that can actually detect when someone presses on a key! Will wonders never cease.
We're still waiting for the comment that can actually detect when it shouldn't be posted, as evidenced by the parent...
Quickstart guide included with your new Microsoft Natural Pressure Sensitive Bob Keyboard:
Parent was the fastest "+4 Funny" to "-0 Troll" to "fucking gone" post moderation I've ever seen on /.
What a waste of mod points.
Excellent! Keyboards from now on will need only 1 key!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
because it turns your 104 into 208 or 312, there's the obvious "angry typing" usage, but there is also potential for stuff like...
Alt+Tab (light) = Change Tab In Browser
Alt+Tab (med) = Change Application Window
Alt+Tab (hard) = Change User Account
or
Left (light) = Move (one char)
Left (med) = Move (one word)
Left (hard) = Move (one line)
or the F# keys, you could now have 24 instead of 12.
(granted I basically just look at the pictures, didn't RTFA) but depending on how this is done, it could also mean 2 or 3x the failure rate, however, it could also mean half or a third of the failures for normal key typing, your Space Bar gives out on a normal keyboard, it's done, but with this one you could just press harder/lighter and it would still work.
The parallels with synthesiser keyboard technology are quite interesting. The video in the article talks about using the force the key's hit with to determine whether a key was pressed in error. Soft key hits are likely to be unintentional 'glancing blows'. This is also the classic problem with non-touch sensitive synth keyboards - they suddenly make adept pianists appear to be clumsy morons because every glancing key hit produces a 'wrong note'.
However, in synth terminology, keyboards are distinguished as 'velocity sensitive' (how fast the key is initially hit, like a piano) and 'pressure sensitive' (how hard the key is pressed after the initial strike, like a clavichord pitch-bending a note, sometimes called 'polyphonic aftertouch'). The microsoft keyboard is both velocity and pressure sensitive, with multiple simultaneous channels of pressure sensitivity. The pressure aftertouch has some interesting applications in creative software, where artists have to input several layers or dimensions of data simultaneously. (My field is film post-production so I'm specifically thinking about 3-D). This is currently implemented in most software using a messy combination of simultaneously mouse and modifier keys. But using pressure sensitive keys would accommodate several other simultaneous continuously-variable 'dimensions' of data input.
Wouldn't that be a legitimate use of the keyboard? Would Microsoft pay $2000 for it?
gentle.. gentle.. gentle..
asdf... mmmm....
Harder! Firmer!
THERE!
HARDER! NOW! THE TILDE! THE TILDE! CARROT! YES!
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
I nEEd to leArN to TyPE wiTH moRe coNSistENT preSsurE.