Microsoft Hardware Demos Pressure-Sensitive Keyboard 212
Krystalo writes to tell us that Microsoft hardware has an interesting demo of a pressure-sensitive keyboard they have designed. While there are no currently announced plans to turn this into a shipping product, there are many cool uses that one could imagine a device like this providing. "The device will be put to use in the first annual Student Innovation Contest in Victoria, Canada, where contestants will be supplied with a keyboard prototype and challenged with developing new interactions for it. Contestants will demo their creations and attendees will vote for their favorite at the conference on October 5. $2,000 prizes will be given to the authors of programs deemed as the most useful, the best implementation, and the most innovative."
Re:Aren't all keyboards pressure sensitive (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, I know they meant it distinguishes between a light hit and a hard hit.
They really need a better name.
Perhaps simply calling it "Variable Pressure Keyboard"
Velocity Sensitive is commonly used in the music industry in describing a keyboards that react to pressure. That work for ya?
Re:Another stroke of genious from MS (Score:5, Informative)
However, in synth terminology, keyboards are distinguished as 'velocity sensitive' (how fast the key is initially hit, like a piano) and 'pressure sensitive' (how hard the key is pressed after the initial strike, like a clavichord pitch-bending a note, sometimes called 'polyphonic aftertouch'). The microsoft keyboard is both velocity and pressure sensitive, with multiple simultaneous channels of pressure sensitivity. The pressure aftertouch has some interesting applications in creative software, where artists have to input several layers or dimensions of data simultaneously. (My field is film post-production so I'm specifically thinking about 3-D). This is currently implemented in most software using a messy combination of simultaneously mouse and modifier keys. But using pressure sensitive keys would accommodate several other simultaneous continuously-variable 'dimensions' of data input.
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Informative)
If "Contests" like this were actually trying to encourage rewarding students for the innovations (as opposed to simply exploiting them), why not give them a slice of the pie, say...5% of the profits generated?
I have YET to see a single "contest" that offered such a reward.
And while I'm on the subject, have you ever noticed that even the losers give up IP rights, so that if the student improves on the idea after the fact, it still belongs to the company sponsoring the "contest", with NO rewards at all? One more aspect that points to the real motives of the sponsors.
Re:Aren't all keyboards pressure sensitive (Score:3, Informative)
Velocity Sensitive is commonly used in the music industry in describing a keyboards that react to pressure. That work for ya?
It'd take a bit more work to implement this; but I bet there'd be a small market (centered around Redmond, WA) for Velocity Sensitive Chairs.
Re:Another stroke of genious from MS (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you wanted to confine yourself to only the most trivial of substitutions, you'd need broad adoption to motivate people to put in the effort of learning the new system. Even systems that merely involve software remapping of normal keyboards have had a hard life. Nobody who isn't a court reporter or something would bother to put in the time to learn a system that would tie them to a particular obscure hardware brand.
I'd like to see it, more expressive and powerful input devices are always a good thing; but the history doesn't leave me hopeful. The world is, and has been for a while, full of extremely powerful input systems for specialist users, court reporters, stenographers, musicians, etc. With the exception of the basic piano-style keyboard, those powerful, but initially opaque, interfaces have remained niche and expensive compared to your basic, boring 144 key keyboard, T9 for cellphones, and some fairly simple touchscreen stuff.
Re:Aren't all keyboards pressure sensitive (Score:3, Informative)
No, velocity sensitivity doesn't react to pressure, but how fast you strike the key. The term you are looking for is aftertouch.