DailyDirt: Better Keyboards

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Keyboards are one of the fastest and most accurate ways to input text into a digital device. Sure, you could argue that speech recognition has beaten a txting champion (Ben Cook in 2006), but the more common experience with speech recognition is far from perfect dictation results. Early keyboards used some relatively complex mechanical designs to achieve a nice tactile feel and accurate input -- replaced by various iterations of keyboard improvements to become thinner and lighter and more (or less) clicky-sounding. Here are just a few more attempts to make better keyboards.

• Designing a keyboard isn't as easy as you might think. Okay, maybe it's just as hard as you think it is.... [url]
• It might be neat to have a camera sensor track your hand movements so that any surface could become a keyboard or multi-touch input device. But if it's really that great, why aren't there more of these kinds of camera-based keyboards? [url]
• Touchscreens are lacking in the tactile feedback department, but there's an accessory that features shape-shifting buttons that make raised bumps on a glass surface appear and disappear as needed. Presumably, these shape-shifting bumps don't make clicky noises when you touch them, and making a touchscreen even more complex doesn't sound like a better option than just adding a detachable keyboard for a tablet. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: buttons, haptics, input devices, keyboards, multi-touch, sensors, speech recognition, touchscreens, ui
Companies: keyboardio, kickstarter, nuance