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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.
LOL Microsoft developed an analog keyboard. OR they just remembered how their palm pilots worked and ported it to android..
LOL Microsoft developed an analog keyboard. OR they just remembered how their palm pilots worked and ported it to android..
my thought exactly, and then I recall how blackberry took a big chunk of the pda market from palm. perhaps the smaller form factor will make it compelling again.
on the otherhand apple watch already demoed transmitting drawn shapes on their watch presumably for the same rationale of input to a small form factor.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Isn't this basically what the original palm computers did for text entry?
This reminds me of the Graffiti input method Palm developed for its devices. It was used on a small touch pad, before larger touch screens became available.
Does anyone else remember Palm devices having a little handwriting recognition box at the bottom, with the Graffiti? Hopefully this system does a better job at recognizing handwriting, but it's hardly a novel idea. I'm half expecting that next, someone is going to release a groundbreaking new smartwatch with a physical keyboard that looks like a casio watch.
Not that I object to drawing on old approaches in designing new products, but I can't help but roll my eyes if Microsoft is going to try to claim that this is innovative. Off the top of my head, it seems like we've had 4 different methods for text input: physical keyboards, virtual keyboards, handwriting recognition, and speech recognition. Each has problems that are fairly well understood. Speech recognition has gotten better in the past couple years, and Swype-style virtual keyboards (analyzing shape rather than simply button pressing) is fairly innovative, but I'm not seeing how this is actually a new thing, other than implementing it on a watch.
An update to the Casio AT-550?
Personally, I'd be fine with a wider watch. It's not like I need articulation on my forearm. Think "Less like a watch, more like a pip-boy."
Obviously, the trick would be to make it thin, lightweight, and comfortable enough that people would actually wear it. But even if you just made it the width of a standard cell phone keyboard, you could have one-hand operation at roughly twice the width of a standard watch. the extra width should even allow you to spread the components out over a larger area, allowing for a thinner device.
Handwriting input is routine for input of Chinese characters on mobile phones, and has been for many years already. The character recognition part works quite well there, and is certainly a lot harder than for the very limited Western alphabet. So unless I'm missing something, there doesn't seem to be anything innovative about it.
I especially love the part in the MS research video where they use Google to perform a search...
Priceless
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
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?
MS Flight simulator...... etc. etc. etc.
Oh, you mean the product they licensed from creator Bruce Artwick for a hefty sum, and then paid him to contiune work on? MSFS was in no way stolen from Artwick/subLOGIC.