Slashdot Mirror
Thumb-only Keyboard?
Numeric writes
" You know a thumb has more usefullness than just for
hitchiking...A Stanford Univ. professor is developeing an
all-thumb keyboard.
A user will wear a glove that reads data by the user depressing
"hot spots" on a glove's finger. Of course, the wearer will
have to learn "thumbcode". "
Why not use the alternate to the grafitti input mentioned in a previous article instead. You could hack a mouse pad up to allow input and hang it off your little computer...
And you could use your data goggles to display the current characters overlay on the mouse pad when you're looking at it...
That looks cool, I'll probably try that. Hell, it looks just like what that guy is talking about.
The sound is...is...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
(well what do you know, i just had a satori experience. thanks)
Why don't they create something to use the other appendage we don't use during the day! The only problem would be no woman's version.
I once worked for a company that was developing a similar product. Instead of "thumbing", though, we called it "fisting".
The company failed, partly because we wound up in some really preverted search engines.
Not too new...
http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~odo/gloves/
Ok, then how about toe controls?
Maybe you could put the touchpad on the back of the hand for a little less flexibility requirement. It would be neat to program this thing, so at product demos you could snap your fingers to click the mouse, but in real usage do something simpler.
My wrists were starting to hurt so I bought this MS keyboard and it kind of works but my typing speed has decreased. And the linux kernel keeps complaining about keyboard line-noise, I'll have to recompile it with these warnings off.
NT
IIRC, the "thigh split-keyboard" _has_ been done, and easily, too. There are apparently some keyboards which can actually be cut entirely in half without cutting through any traces, if you do the cutting right (you probably still have to solder a few wires). So, if you're a good hand with a coping saw...
Me, I'd probably go for upper arm, not thigh - I put things on my lap or lean sideways too often. Upper arm, you cross your arms over your chest to type.
The cypherpunks/cypherpunks login doesn't seem to work at all if you don't have cookies enabled, like myself. This crap is highly irritating. (I don't have anything in particular against cookies, except that I don't want to be forced to use them...)
Very well said. Sites that _require_ cookies are only limiting thier audience. Not a Good Thing for a news service.
The power glove used conductive ink (not fiber) -- when it came out, it was cheaper than fiber optic gloves by an order of magnitude. It became even cheaper when people figured out you couldn't play Nintendo with it like Fred Savage could. /That's/ why it's great for 3r33t garage VR.
I almost had to fill out somthing to complain about filling out things! But really- Do I want to give the TIMES any MARKETING INFORMATIOIN? I noticed they wanted my email address, kids, can you say SPAM? I knew you could.
I almost had to fill out somthing to complain about filling out things! But really- Do I want to give the TIMES any MARKETING INFORMATION? I noticed they wanted my email address, kids, can you say SPAM? I knew you could.
OK, this is what i do. i just enter whatever i want, (usually a 70+ year old female earnning 6 digits) and give a creative name each time i go there. if i go there 70 times, they got 70 of me. big deal. maybe the guys just wanna show the boss that they got a lot of traffic.
uh, dude,
Gene siskel is no longer with us.
does this sound dirtier and dirtier each post?
I think Wall street dealers might like this thumb-twisting idea.
I can understand not trying to encode Unicode on one hand (or even both hands and both feet!) but it doesn't even include European characters
There is no such thing as Unicode input, and no one seriously uses Unicode anyway. Non-ASCII keyboards are the same as American ones, with additional switches between alphabets or parts of alphabet or shift/prefix/... keys that affect one letter. They are often implemented as key combinations on normal keyboard -- for example, my keyboard switches between ASCII and Cyrillic subsets of koi8 by (Left Shift)+(Right Shift>).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
there's a log in for all you lazy bums.
l: cypherpunk53 p:cypherpunk I think I think I think that works =)
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Here's a keen idea for an input device, use just your thumb, but use that Quickwriting layout that was talked about for the PlamPilot a few articals down. Hold your finger together and touch them as surface, and slide around like they said in that artical. None of this tapping business. And possibly faster, atleast it seems so just playing with it here.
If you're one of the common right-handed, right-spacebar-thumbed people, you're gonna be hard pressed (ha-ha) when it comes time to type a space.
What is the sound of one thumb pressing itself?
Eeek. My hand is getting cramped up and having muscular spasms just looking at that thing.
The complexity of the movements needed for this glove looks WAY to deep, but the basic drivers/layout might be used for something much simplier.
I can tap my fingers to my thumb pretty darn fast.
I can tap TWO or THREE fingers at a time, in various combonations to my thumb, at the same time, pretty fast too.
I have two hands.
So, given that, there are 8 primary combinations (each single finger, on each hand, touching the thumb). Theses should be the 8 most used keys.
There are then 7 additional two fingers to the thumb at one time combinations on each hand, giving 14 more combinations.
There are then 4 more combinations of three fingers at a time (slightly more difficult, but easier than some of the contortions that glove looks like) on each hand, giving 8 more combinations. (someone check my math.)
That is up to 30 keys, with much less work for the user.
Now, add potential combinations of on finger to thumb on one hand, and one finger to thumb on the other hand at the same time... and the number should jump up quite a bit. Now, THAT, I would consider using... A pair of very easy to use gloves that are much more portable than a keyboard, and maybe faster. Amagine, typing away while doing other things... protable computeing... Input devices are as important as output (remember that all you HUD guys!)
Although, I believe it's important, I don't particuarlly find it interesting. Because of the fact that qwerty is a standard, and works just fine, it will be very very hard to replace with ANYTHING. People learn it, it's everywhere, it's easy (I can type faster than I can write by hand, and I know I am not the best typessste :-P). Any alternitive to character input to a computer would have to be _significantly_ faster and easier than qwerty to actually get anywhere (thus, I am interested in Via Voice that is suppose to ship in RH 6.0).
For that reason, I don't think projects like this thumb thing can be significantly viable. This is good, and I am glad someone is trying alternitives, but I think that the goal has to be for the disabled, and something like a low dexterity input device would be better (someone hack character input for a joystick or something.. that would probably be better...)
Someone should bookmark this thread and send it to the wearable people :P
I wonder if I still have that old Thrustmaster throttle control thingamajig mark X in the closet. It had a bunch of buttons on it with rockers and more. Perhaps I should try to apply it as an alternative keyboard.
Has anyone already pulled something like this off?
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
He claims at the end of the article he can reach speeds of 60wpm, with some macro help. Which isn't spectacular, but certainly serviceable.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Why can it rest on your chair arm, or hang loosely at your side?
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I don't know about this one. It seems like it would be hard to achieve any kind of reasonable speed doing this.
Shawn Asmussen
That's why we have cypherpunks/cypherpunks around. Most of the sites that get linked to from here that require registration have the cypherpunks login set up already, and most of them also work like Slashdot where they use cookies to remember who you are so you don't have to even log in the next time around. I used the cypherpunks login a couple of times a long time ago, and now I can't even remember the last time I was ever pestered by those annoying login screens.
Shawn Asmussen
I too was a little put out to see yet another Katz column today. Please God, not another talking head!
Not to be disrespectful or flippant to other people's pain and suffering, but sheesh John, let up a bit! We've but only finished burying the dead and treating the wounded and still have yet to gather all the facts in this case. This is going to take weeks and maybe months (and maybe years) to figure out. Meanwhile, we need to be patient, pray for those who are hurting, and use our God given hacker abilities to solve these puzzles and conundrums and get on with life for all our sakes. So let's not let Slashdot fall prey to the hysteria that has infected the major media or we'll be sucked in too and lose that which makes us special - being hackers and problem solvers. This place should be a refuge from that mess.
So then we'll all evolve to have one digit on our hands....our thumbs.
Ahahaha!
What kind of gestures can you make to people with only one digit? Not much variety if you ask me.
For a second there I thought somebody had invented one... I could use it. I think it's about time to get off this rock.
Clumsy indeed. I'm all for the two ear keyboard! Twice the speed and hands free.
On the Datahand, both thumbs are used quite a bit. The right thumb is responsible for space, backspace, number/symbol modeshift, entering mouse mode, and the alt key, and the left thumb does tab, enter, shift, entering character mode, and the ctrl key. Admittedly, I used to use my left thumb for the spacebar, but now even on normal keyboards I use my right thumb, just out of habit.
The Datahand does a good job of distributing load across all the fingers in a pretty sane way. Their mapping could be improved slightly, but not enough to complain about (as long as you don't want to play games on it).
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
I can understand not trying to encode Unicode on one hand (or even both hands and both feet!) but it doesn't even include European characters,
Still, better than the soon-to-be-invented M$ version -- it will speak Code Pages or something bizarre,
--
Infuriate left and right
Think about how it would speed up entry into say the IBM "Itsy".
Maybe they should take the test experiment with communications over human skin (potential) and measure the nerve impulses in the hand to input information.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
Siskel & Ebert give it two thumbs down..
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The fastest way to get Carpal-Tunnels in your thumb!
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"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
cypherpunk/cypherpunk works, as always.
Now quitcha bitchin'.
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
"A.S.L. uses finger spelling for uncommon words and about 6,000 gestures for common words. It's complicated to explain gestures to computers."
I use a product called "Pop-Mouse" from Pointix. It listens to a small set of gestures and allows me to directly run programs or fake keystrokes, or popup a menu of options. I have one set of apps, one set of folders and one set of "stamps" (fragments of text) that I use very often, plus a bunch of other things (like running my MP3 player, or pressing F5 to refresh).
The gestures it allows are; Clockwise circle, Anti-Clockwise circle, shake left-right, shake up-down. It also monitors the (middle of the) edges of the screen, and can be modified by SHIFT and CTRL.
This program allows me to basically operate my PC one-handed with a single 4-button wheel-mouse. I only need to move to the keyboard when I'm doing an extended amount of typing, which is slowly becoming less frequent. Common text fragments I have on my stamp menu include my various e-mail and web addresses for entry into forms. I'm considering purchasing a set of foot pedals, but then I'd have no use for my left hand at all.
Keyboards aren't the way to head, gestures are. Does anyone else have anything that listens to gestures?
Kris.
Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)
This looks very neat. However, after trying to move my hand into the various required positions, I think that it would be hard to use. The keyboard encoding map is wonderful, though; this would let me hack together an arbitrary input device with conventional hardware. Thanks to the author for posting it.
Does this mean girls will dig us because we only have one finger? Remember, natural selection favors the smart and the attractive. The attractive for obvious reasons. (I mean, given your choice who would you sleep with...) The smart because we can trick 'em. Hmmm... I guess we will evolve into single digit creatures.
Hey, maybe human is just a stop on the way from monkey to thumb.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
-DrPsycho - Coping with reality since 1975
Evolution requires the unfit to _not_ procreate.
The humans who breed the most are (on average) the
least intelligent/advanced/etc.
Look around at the most intelligent people you
know, or even just the people with the physical
traits that make them somewhat more advanced than
average, most don't have any kids, or maybe 1. Now
look around at all the people you see with 4+
kids... scared yet? You should be. The human race
is in trouble.
Just because something might benefit humans, does
not mean we will evolve in that direction. I saw a
drawing that a "scientist" made about what we will
evolve into years back... it was rediculous. The
creature was short, bald, with long fingers with
pads on the ends for pushing buttons. This can't
happen unless all the people who have trouble
reaching buttons _die_.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
Now, if you could "thumb" without any glove on, just an electronic eye strapped to your wrist, that would be cool. The image of that sort of reminds me of the "hand talking" that was described in Dune.
Still, based on the meagre amount of information I have absorbed on thumbing, I think the twiddler is better, if for no other reason that it has a built in pointer. Now if I could just convince the wife-unit that I need to $200 keyboard for my pilot...
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Extreme Computing has now partnered with Ricoh to provide the Magio as a base for a wearable kit. Total cost under $2000 including M1 and Twiddler.
I'm not affiliated w/ the company BTW. Saw it on the wear-hard list today.
>could they make gloves that would read sign language...?
Yes. They have. In fact this hat does it without gloves.
Cheers,
Joshua "No more hate mail, please" Rodd
[0] Yes, I've read too many IBM manuals. I have a fixed disk within my system unit (to which a pointing device is attached) whereupon rests a color display...
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
wouldn't that start to seriously hurt your thumb after awhile? It's bad enough with the keyboard, with an entire two hands to spread the carpal tunnel syndrome out between..
but putting all the stress on the thumb? i dunno about that.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
could they make gloves that would read sign language and use that as a keyboard? do they already?
was that wierd glove thing they had in the movie "Congo" made up?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It sounds like an interesting concept. I'd cherish it if someone could actually make something like the above work. Another idea for supreme portability, ease of use, and just plain innovativeness:
Perhaps the palms of the gloves could be used as a touchpad...simply use a finger or thumb to navigate, and...well, i'm sure someone could figure out a good way to click. Of course this would require a supremely flexible trackpad, but i'm sure if there were enough demand, it could be done easily enough.
What about games? You think you will be able to sucessfully navigate Half-Life or other games which contain many much-needed keys? I doubt it. Not to mention it must be a bitch to code using this.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
Finally--something interesting, instead of watching Jon Katz milk the Littleton massacre cow for all its worth.
Bowie J. Poag
This certainly makes the current poll a lot more interesting.
-Chris
If we can figure out how to get the mind controled device to all our typing, ect, ect,ect...
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Dof! The nintendo power glove is great for garage VR applications. I use mine as a mouse, and can still type with that hand.
Basically it's just some fiber-optic strands that react to a finger bend. Replace the inner material with something breatheable and comfortable, get the pin outs right, and you are in business. Now, combine that with a glove keyboard design, and you have a great wearable design.
How about a combination of flexible and split keyboards that you could wear on the tops of your thighs? You couldn't use it while walking, but it'd be convienient when sitting or standing. It'd look super geeky, but no worse than this glove or other MIT borg devices.
The glove sounds interesting, but moving your thumb to the base of your fingers sounds unnatural. Handykey sounds better right now (I ordered one a while back and should be getting it soon). The twiddlers look awesome to me and I can't wait to get mine.
I can't even do the Star-Trek vulcan salute, doubt I'd be able to retrain myself to do anything that coordinated. :-)
"If thumbcode catches on, joggers may someday be able to answer their e-mail as they trot along, and pedestrians will be able to get in a few paragraphs of the great American novel as they wait for traffic lights to change. "
Oh puh-leez! If I saw someone answering e-mail while jogging I would be compelled to run them down. I respect individuals that work towards inventing truly useable portable information devices, but I think the realistic applications probably don't include typing while jogging (you are supposed to clear your mind and enjoy the runners high anyway, right?)
..about six feet down, huh?
(sorry, couldn't resist)
+&x
At my company, we are working (Dang! She's pretty hot!) on direct neural (not the phone again Hello? No I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.) input systems. The technology (Man, I'm hungry.) still has some bugs to work out, (Geez, dude, SHUT UP over there.) but I'm using it to send this post. (Submit!)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
They're developing socks to go with the glove so we can use Emacs. ;)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I found the typecode specs, but that site looks totally different than the one described. Anyone know of any plans for one that fits the specs at http://boole.stanford.edu/thumbcode/thumbcode.html , or is there another site with specs for the glove previously mention? I'd really like to try this out.
-- insomniac --
...seeing as how thumbadextrous the instrument is (9 keys for the left thumb, 4 or 5 for the right)
anyone else think that people using this type of input device would be more prone to hand problems often related to computer usage? it seems to me that this device may put too much strain on the hand. (like i really care...but...whatever)
If you want to make your own, check this out ..
Looks very similar
Remember the Nintendo Glove? I got it for a Christmas gift once, and took it back and bought a game instead. Things like that arent sucessful. Most glove type devices I noticed caused arm strain, try holding your hand out, just try...I'd rather get a syndrome from typing :)
Matt
SpamMan