Multi-Touch Keyboard Technology 246
PhoenxHwk writes "University of Delaware's webpage is running a story on the new Multi-Touch Keyboard by Fingerworks. This was on Slashdot once before, but the product is no longer vapor! Fingerworks's products are gesture-based keyboard-and-mouse "surfaces" that require zero force to work with - they are hailed as a product to both combat RSI and make working more efficient."
Re:zero force? (Score:3, Insightful)
Gestures? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, here's a little snippet from the page I was reading before it died:
The iGesture Pad gives you unprecedented control of graphical objects using gestures while providing you with the same functionality of the mouse. The iGesture Pad is thin enough to pack along with your notebook computer and it is a perfect mouse or track ball replacement for your desktop system. It works equally well with either hand.
They way they show this thing being used, you spend as much time making sign-language-like gestures to perform computer commands as you do pointing and dragging your finger around.
On one hand, I think this would be a cool idea, but on the other I wonder how much more or less stress having to effectively communicate in a sign language would be than using a mouse to accomplish the same tasks.
Speech Recognition (Score:3, Insightful)
"If you want to test this claim, you can do so with a perfect speech recognition system-another human being," Elias said. "Put somebody in front of your computer and try to do your work by issuing voice commands to him. You'll quickly find that many common tasks are difficult to do using speech, even though your 'computer interface' understands you perfectly."'
It's there a flaw in the argument here?
This is trying to use a UI designed to use a keyboard and a mouse by using speech instead. Wouldn't a system that was intended to use speech recognition be designed around that idea? I'd think that would cause it to have a completly different interface.
What he describes is like trying to navigate a mouse driven interface with a keyboard when it hasn't been designed to use a keyboard at all. Or maybe a better example, it's like trying to type a letter using your mouse to click on a onscreen keyboard. It's just not how the UI was designed to be driven.
--Ty
Re:This is great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, at least when I type my password, other people have a hard time seeing what I type. If I sit there gesturing at the computer though...
Re:zero force? (Score:2, Insightful)
Strictly speaking, even a capacitive sensor would need *some* force, because entering the finger into the electric field must change its configuration to be detectable, and thus require some force, either on the way in or out. But if that force is two orders of magnitude smaller than that needed to overcome biological friction of your finger joints, that's "zero" for all practical means and purposes.
Re:Good idea, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I want an interface that is designed to be the most efficient/powerful for use, with all of my relevant senses taken into consideration.
If someone else needs an interface with the restriction that the sense of sight cannot be a factor, then make one for him/her that is the most efficient/powerful with those restrictions accounted for.
I don't think the two will be the same, and I don't see why one should suffer with a lesser interface based on limitations he/she doesn't have.
I doubt this is a good design (Score:4, Insightful)
If you work against a mechanical resistance, one of the two muscles actually has to do less work because the necessary opposition is alredy being supplied by the mechanism. Mechanical resistance also provides tactile feedback.
If there is no resistance, you have to provide it yourself. And if you tap away on a hard surface, it's even worse: the force gets delivered all in one strike, as opposed to gradually, as it is with well-designed keyboard. Touch pads, for all their sleek design, are probably the worst among the common mouse replacements.
For all these reasons, keyboard, pianos, buttons, and other devices have a certain degree of resistance deliberately designed into them. I suspect that a zero-force input device will not help with RSI and may actually aggravate it. But whatever effect it may have for RSI, I doubt a zero-force input device is going to be comfortable and efficient.
Re:This is great! (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you come to that conclution? Typing your password on a keyboard is a gesture. An obvious one at that.
If you can type fast, they you can gesture fast to. With a keyboard there is also a limited number of 'gestures' that one could perform.
Re:Good idea, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no evidence... (Score:2, Insightful)