Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Develops Analog Keyboard For Wearables, Solves Small Display Dilemma
MojoKid writes Have you ever tried hunting and pecking on a miniature keyboard that's been crammed onto a smartwatch's tiny display? Unless the tips of your fingers somehow resemble that of a stylus, you're in for a challenge. Interestingly enough, it's Microsoft that might have the most logical solution for typing on small size displays running Google's Android Wear platform. Microsoft's research division has built an analog keyboard prototype for Android Wear that eliminates the need to tap at tiny letters, and instead has you write them out. On the surface, such a solution seems like you'd be trading one tedious task for another, though a demo of the technology in action shows that this could be a promising solution — watch how fast the guy in the video is able to hammer out a response.
it's Microsoft that might have the most logical solution for typing on small size displays running Google's Android Wear platform. Microsoft's research division has built an analog keyboard prototype for Android Wear that eliminates the need to tap at tiny letters, and instead has you write them out.
Why would you want to type at all? There's reasonably good voice recognition now, that's got to be better than trying to finger-paint letters on a tiny watch screen?
Windows NT (includes 2K, XP, 7, 8, 2008, 2012 etc.) was "borrowed" from DEC:
http://books.google.com/books?...
DOS was "borrowed" from CPM
Doublespace was "borrowed" from Stac Electronics
MS Flight simulator...... etc. etc. etc.
Even thier "cloud" offerings stole search results from Google
http://googleblog.blogspot.com...
Microsoft has a long history of appropriating the work of others. No, unfortunately, these are real people whose livelihoods are stolen, not puppets from mars. A good friend lost his job at Stac after MS stole their product, stacker, then after losing in court, and having to pay $23M in damages, counter sued that the only way Stac could have created stacker was to reverse engineer DOS since MS didn't provide documentation that would have made such a product possible (exactly opposite what MS told anti-trust investigation). MS only got $3M back via their suit, so they acquired Stac, then fired everybody.
But, MS's theft as a business model doesn't seem to be sustaining the company. MS, while still fat with money is bleeding it fast, and has nothing, that is cash flow positive, except legacy stuff. People speak of the irrelevance of MS all the time-- it is not hyperbole. And, anyone who knows anything about MS business practices will not mourn their passing.