As I read Ars Technica, I came across a post and then a discussion about fancy new keyboards. The following caught my attention and facinated me:
Projection Keyboard
This little device was the first one to catch my attention. Sadly, they don’t seem to discuss the technology used in its creation. Effectively, it will project a little keyboard onto a flat surface, and as you type on that, it will detect your keystrokes. Yahoo seems to have a better picture of it than the actual site of the producers, who only seem to have artist’s renderings of the device. They do claim to have “resolved technological hurdles” in order to create this device. So we’ll have to wait and see.
Senseboard
I’ve seen a couple variations on the Senseboard some are little finger-grabbing rings, etc. Apparently they’re supposed to sniff the ways your hand moves (Senseboard claims to use AI to assist in this process). I wont believe this until I try it. If this worked it could be great because people could type anywhere (no flat surface) with no over-bulky unit. If these things ever shrink along with the rest of technology, maybe we’ll all have them. There’s a thought. If keyboards became so easy to carry around and we all had them, would public phones remove their dirty buttons? Same with Interac machines, or drive-throughs.
Half Keyboard
Finally, this Sinbad-approved little keyboard brags of simple one handed usability that can be picked up in a handful of minutes. The way it works is you get a left-side of a keyboard, and if you want to use a key on the other side, you hold spacebar and it works like shift. Tapping spacebar will still provide a space. The part I found cool, was that it mirrored the right half of the keyboard. So the P and the Q share a key. I guess the brain finds it easier that way. They have a nice little How It Works section which is worth playing with (they have Flash!). They even have what seems to be a one-hand simulator where you can test your skills with your own keybaord. Try it, it’s fun.
Looks like we’ll have to decide how dependant we are in that ‘tapity-tap’.
BlogML (weblog markup language) doesn’t exist yet (as far as I know), but I think could save us.
To my great wonderful joy, I was pointed in the direction of a cover band called 