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."
Price? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone know the price of these things?
Zero force sounds not nice (Score:3, Interesting)
The system is intended to replace the keyboard AND the mouse. I like the sound of that part. If you try to use a mouse, you waste a lot of typing time moving back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse. This would really help out there. Of course, keyboard shortcuts accomplish the same thing. They say:
That all sounds a lot like emacs and its key-chords.They say that it will reduce repetitive stress problems, but I wonder. Is tapping your fingers on a pad, or twisting your wrist, really that different than typing? If you have to do the same operations over and over, aren't you going to eventually get stressed?
Minority Report (Score:3, Interesting)
Other uses of gestures (Score:2, Interesting)
This is still pretty cool, just imagine playing something like the Best. Fighting Game. Ever. (Soul Calibur, IMO) using gestures instead of 'cycle-quarter left, x+y'. You could have hand-fu instead of finger-foo. hehe... Maybe I should trademark hand-fu.
What about other hand-tracking technologies? When gestures are mentioned, I think of the PowerGlove (or DataGlove, depending) and then I think of the Nintendo U-Force controller-thing. http://www.nesplayer.com/database/accessories/ufo
Who knows, it could be cool. (Maybe I should read the previous article, too.)
Re:great product (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you need the keyboard fixed in place on this thing? Why do you need keys with boundaries?
It seems as though this thing could just make the keyboard be wherever the hands feel like being. Wherever you put your hands on the pad, that's where the keyboard is.
If you have the hands resting in the touch-type position, regardless of position on the pad, and the left index-finger is depressed, type an 'F'.
If an area is tapped that is just a bit above and to the left of the left middle finger, type an 'E'.
Just put your hands down and do the motion of typing, no need to line anything up.
Or, is this how it already works? Or, is this a bad idea and I'm just a fool?
Justin Dubs
Re:great product (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Er... (Score:2, Interesting)
I have the touchstream LP and its very easy on that wrist. No pressure/force is needed by the fingers which in turn keeps the stress down my wrist. (you can only guess what other activities are prohibited by this "handicap")
I wouldn't recommend this thing for anybody impatient, even after 6 months with it I still can't touchtype very fast. It also makes some standard key combos (alt-f4) a bit difficult. And forget gaming with it - the repeat rate isn't high enough to allow it. The mouse emulation isn't good enough for it either.
Elias' research published? (Score:3, Interesting)
After a long conversation with my father, I've come to the realization that Repetitive Stress Syndrom (Carpel Tunnel Syndrom is sorta a misnomer) isn't exactly what I thought it was. After understanding it a little better and sharing thoughts with my father, I'm not so sure that Elias' FingerWorks would really reduce RPS. While the stress is a change from the standard mouse/keyboard issue, you're still going to be repeating movements over and over again. It would be expected that such RPS would still result.
IN theory, there's very little research behind all these funky shaped mice these days. It's more of a marketing scheme than anything else. Yes, it might be more comfortable, but it really doesn't help the issue all that terribly much. The split keyboards, however, do help quite a bit. But imagine trying to use those damn things.
Music as a password... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a classical pianist, and if I could make my password the first four bars of Rhapsody in Blue, I would feel pretty secure with my computer.
Re:zero force? (Score:3, Interesting)
Early touchpad technologies were capacitive. Some laptops used to have capacitive touchpads on them, which made them crap for police use in places where you actually get a winter and might be wearing gloves. So they developed some sort of resistive keypad which, althought probably not zero force, is close enough to it and you can use it with gloves on.
Dexterity a requirement? (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly, I work often 12 hours a day at a keyboard, and I use a mouse. Since I shifted to a high res optical mouse (small movements required) and since I use all the buttons but don't have a death grip and since I use an old MS-Pro ergo keyboard with a raised bottom end (unlike most keyboards), I've had little or no pain in elbows, wrists, or tendons... unlike the bad old days on the QWERTY/top-elevated keyboards and roll-around mice.
When this new technology matures, and if I feel like re-training, it might be interesting, but I can already do a lot with what I have with little discomfort.
But we should be making it available to kids/etc coming up... they don't have a retraining issue and if it avoids some people headed down the nasty RSI path... that's good.
Minor plug: Living with RSI [akasa.bc.ca]
Re:great product (Score:2, Interesting)
Changing surface?? (Score:2, Interesting)
obKinesis (Score:2, Interesting)
Everything changed when I splurged $300 for the Kinesis Contour keyboard. There are four major differences between this keyboard and the others out there, and together they make typing feel to me like I'm running down hill.
1. Separated "key wells" (you have to see the picture [kinesis-ergo.com] to understand) which allow a much more natural hand position.
2. Keys are lined up directly above each other (i.e. the T key is directly north of the G key, not up-to-the-left). This makes your fingers extend out and back, not out and back and side to side.
3. The key wells are curved, which brings the keys on the upper and lower parts of the keybard closer to your fingertips. This is probably the single largest factor contributing to the "running down hill" feeling.
4. Thumbs. Your thumbs are the two strongest digits on your hands. I don't know about you, but the way I used to type I would only use one of my thumbs, and only for one key (the space bar). My left thumb sat dormant. What a waste! Additionally, two of my most actively used fingers were my pinkeys due to the RET, Backspace and Control keys. Guess which fingers are your weakest? On the Kinesis, the thumbs get the most commonly used keys. I've got a couple of buttons re-mapped (due mostly to Emacs usage patterns) so the four major thumb buttons are Control, Alt, Return and Space. I couldn't live any other way.
Give it a try. You won't regret it.
Kinesis home page [kinesis-ergo.com]
-Pez