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."

Comments

Dammed!

[OrangeMonkey11]

Now keyboards can report abuse when I beat the shit out of it when I get pissed off

Re:Dammed!

[steelfood]

Apple has a patent on that.

Gamer keyboard!

[BigDXLT]

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!

Re:What could go wrong

[dr_wheel]

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?

Re:Another stroke of genious from MS

[NotQuiteReal]

No, it is PRESSURE SENSITIVE. It will upcase letters when you press THEM HARD.

Ummm...

[Anachragnome]

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.

Re:Ummm...

[Anachragnome]

If "Contests" like this were actually trying to encourage rewarding students for the innovations (as opposed to simply exploiting them), why not give them a slice of the pie, say...5% of the profits generated?

I have YET to see a single "contest" that offered such a reward.

And while I'm on the subject, have you ever noticed that even the losers give up IP rights, so that if the student improves on the idea after the fact, it still belongs to the company sponsoring the "contest", with NO rewards at all? One more aspect that points to the real motives of the sponsors.

Re:Just use it like a game controller.

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I can think of one use right off.
If person typing an email is hitting keys harder than normal. Delay sending the message for a few hours, as they are probably angry and might wish they had not sent the message.

Re:Another stroke of genious from MS

[Tim4444]

aha! finally a keyboard that can make everything uppercase when i'm shouting at you!! i mean SHOUTING AT YOU!!!!

Aren't all keyboards pressure sensitive

[gurps_npc]

Yeah, I know they meant it distinguishes between a light hit and a hard hit.

They really need a better name.

Perhaps simply calling it "Variable Pressure Keyboard"

Re:Aren't all keyboards pressure sensitive

[RealGrouchy]

Amazingly enough, "velocity sensitive" keyboards respond to velocity, not pressure.

I don't care if the keyboard knows whether I'm bashing it or I'm throwing it across the room, so long as it knows I'm pissed off at it!

- RG>

Re:emacs lovers' dream

[eln]

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.

1-key keyboard?

[Ichijo]

As you can see, the keyboard has pressure-sensitive keys, meaning each key is capable of recording pressure force, up to an 8-bit resolution.

Excellent! Keyboards from now on will need only 1 key!

Re:Another stroke of genious from MS

[infolation]

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.

Re:Pleasure Sensitive

[ink]

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!

Re:Another stroke of genious from MS

[marciot]

I nEEd to leArN to TyPE wiTH moRe coNSistENT preSsurE.