Contest Winners Show Potential For Pressure-Sensitive Keyboard

Chris Harrison writes "About a month ago, Microsoft sent out prototype pressure sensitive keyboards to 40 international teams. They had four weeks to hack and cobble together some cool ideas. The innovation contest that centered around the keyboards released the winners last night (after a voting period Monday night at the ACM UIST conference). Some pretty neat ideas, ranging from pressure-sensitive password entry (Safelock), magnetic pens for cursor control (Hidden Forces), and even cool climbing (Rock Climbing) and land-deformation games (BallMeR)."

Comments

There are pressure insensitive keyboards?

[John Hasler]

Every keyboard I've ever used did something when I pressed on it. Except the broken ones.

Re:There are pressure insensitive keyboards?

[John Hasler]

Here's a nickle. Buy yourself a sense of humor.

Re:There are pressure insensitive keyboards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a quartre. Buy yourself a dictionary.

Re:There are pressure insensitive keyboards?

[tverbeek]

There are people who read /. without sigs disabled?

Re:There are pressure insensitive keyboards?

[agnosticnixie]

Here's a diem, seize it.

Re:There are pressure insensitive keyboards?

[Anpheus]

Here's a carp, I couldn't be bothered to teach you how to fish, so I leave it as an exercise to the eater.

BallMer

[LtGordon]

A land deformation game named BallMer? I see we've moved from chair-throwing straight to the fat jokes.

Finally!

[Rah'Dick]

Finally a keyboard that recognizes when I slam my fist into it! Make that a keybinding for "stop whatever the fuck you're doing and respond already".

Re:Finally!

[somersault]

The most useful initial application for me would be to simulate a shift keypress when you press a little harder than everyday typing pressure.

Could be amusing for automatically writing in caps when you get ANGRY, and handy for running in oldskool FPS games that don't support the full analog range of the buttons - which could be easily supported right now in any game that already supports analog games controllers.

Re:Finally!

[mhajicek]

I'm thinking of motion control in games, where pressing harder means going faster or hitting harder. I might sprain my fingers playing L4D though...

Re:What are recovery options?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, even simpler - typing with one hand because of holding a coffee mug in another.

*cough* Yeah, because they're holding a coffee mug. That's the ticket. One hand because of coffee mug. *cough*

Very Impressed

[Chelmet]

I like this, and see pressure sensitive keyboards being predominant in the not too distant future, based primarily upon the supplemental embedded video at the bottom of the linked page. All of the proposed uses, from deleting word at a time, to recognising typos, to movement in games, I can't see any argument against. Its just a genuinely innovative device. A lot of the competition entries are rather useless as they stand, but go a long way to show the potential of the platform. One problem I've always had with PC gaming is not being able to play driving games properly without a controller, as on/off left/right is useless. I suppose this would solve that problem, as I'd now have an analogue keyboard. As to the typing/password recognition, of course it would have teething problems en route to full user acceptance, but all of the criticism levelled so far is easily surmountable. Someone loses a hand, or their typing changes - easy! As per online banking and whatnot, the user can answer a few predefined questions (independent of typing style) and reset the memory. A brute force attack could be prevented by limiting the number of attempts. Okay, so a couple of problems would always be present, such as typing with a coffee in hand or logging in to your girlfriends facebook, but overall I am thrilled by the idea, enough to make my second /. post ever, and am very much looking forward to owning one, providing they don't come with optimus maximus pricetags.

Pressure-Metric Password

[BJ_Covert_Action]

The first application mentioned, the one that assigns user-specific keys/passwords based on typing habits seems like a very impressive and inventive new method of security. Nonetheless, my primary concern would be that it would lock people out of their computers/applications when they have had a little much to drink. On the bright side, I suppose it could cut down on some of the poorer quality Youtube comments and twitter posts...then again, maybe not...

Re:Pressure-Metric Password

[jda104]

Nonetheless, my primary concern would be that it would lock people out of their computers/applications when they have had a little much to drink.

We had a >95% True Positive rate (with a >99% True Negative. I can dig up the ROC curve if you really care...). Basically, the idea is to find and measure typing attributes that are keyboard/mood/alchohol level-agnostic. We're still working on getting funding for testing the algorithm after a few drinks, though.

Re:Pressure-Metric Password

[jda104]

A primitive write-up of the Safelock system is available here - complete with ROC curve and some performance metrics. I've included a little more detail about the four keystroke attributes we measured as well as a surface-level explanation of the algorithm

Re:What are recovery options?

[zippthorne]

Yeah, but now everyone knows your password is 'stewardesses'

Keyboard innovations don't seem to last

[damn_registrars]

Remember a decade or two ago when ergonomic keyboards were going to save our lives and bring about world peace? That really panned out, didn't it?

Or remember before that when the Dvorak layout was being pushed as a better way to type? Clearly since we don't need to worry about typewriter hammers anymore we are ready to move away from QWERTY, right?

Some of us may recall a laptop manufacturer who claimed to have invented a keyboard that could use the kinetic energy of typing to help charge the battery - anyone have one?

None of these are ever going to happen

[4D6963]

Not to piss on their parade, but none of those ideas seem like anything that will ever in one way or another be used by anyone. Even the password thing. Why? Because although it seems like a good idea, people like to think of computers as simple dumb machines. And they need to stay this way, so we can predict how they will respond to our actions. No one's going to want to be locked out of their account because their computer doesn't like the way they're typing today (maybe they hurt their left wrist, or maybe they'd rather copy-paste their password in).

That's pretty typical of the "behold the technology of tomorrow!"-type of concept that never happens cause no one actually wants it, like voice recognition-everything, videophones, video mail or typing e-mails from your living room on your TV set. The problem is that all that's come out of this contest destined to proving the potential of this new keyboard thingie isn't the solution to any problem, or any sort of desirable improvement on anything, which seems to invalidate the merits of the keyboard technology in question. In other words, so what's this thing good for?

Re:None of these are ever going to happen

[tverbeek]

The best boss I ever had (hi, Carl!) had a question he would ask about any proposed new tech: "What is the problem for which this is the solution?"

Re:What are recovery options?

[tverbeek]

A password also tied to key pressure has got to be one of the most out-of-touch-with-reality ideas I've read all day. (And I've been editing Wikipedia.) As if ordinary users didn't have a difficult enough time dealing with foggy memories, poor finger coordination, and the inability to see what characters they've already typed! Implement this, and I will be spending all of my time helping users get logged in to our computers, rather than 1/3 of it.

The future

[ceoyoyo]

Ah, so the future of pressure sensitive keyboards is gimmicks. Good to know.