geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: paprika88 on Mon, 25 July 2011, 23:53:53
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/25/apple-patent-application-takes-the-hard-keys-out-of-the-keyboard/
from link:
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Apple's giving us a patent application peek into its post-PC future, and it looks like hard keys will be so 2008. The recently revelead filing shows off a virtual, flat keyboard concept for Cupertino's line of non-iOS products that flirts with metal, plastic and glass form factors. Using a combination of piezoelectrics, haptic feedback and acoustic pulse recognition, these prospective designs will be able to detect your finger-pounding surface input. If you're the fast-typing kind, you're probably wondering how your digits will recognize the keys sight unseen. Well, there's a few workarounds for that. In its metal and plastic iterations, Jobs and co. plan to stamp or micro-perforate the layout into place, while their glass counterpart would receive a graphical overlay. The application also promises an LED-lit display for hard to see conditions and the inclusion of capactive sensors to enable multi-touch functions, so you avoid e.e. cummings-style emails. Of course, applications aren't necessarily indicative of a surefire product, but those interested in tickling their imagination can give the source link a look.
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Sounds like the best keyboard ever to be made. Mechanicals are now obsolete.
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Nice!!! But if it comes with the stupid staggered layout like almost everything else ... :frusty:
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Killer technology, ancient ergonomic errors.
Staggered must be better. Why else does 99+% continue with it? A solid 20 years to reconsider that...an entire generation!
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Am I missing something here? this thing seems horrible...
Sure, its high-tech, just like those laser keyboards, amazing technology. But useless when it boils down to pushing an actual button.
Trey.
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This sounds like a terrible idea. You know those touch-lamps that turn on when you touch the metal? That's what a capacities switch is. These new keyboards won't have any tactility and you'll essentially be typing on a sheet of glass.
I'll take a tried and true mechanical keyboard over an expensive and gimmicky ipad-turned-keyboard.
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Wow, piezo electrics, that sure is some quality. Maybe include a piezo microphone so the keyboard can recognize when you yell at it
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There are tons of wacky patents for experimental products and technology for all of the big computing giants. They make for great entertainment when people want to blog about silly/cool/futuristic ideas or get their panties in a bunch, but they're just R&D ideas.
Has anyone here actually tried touch typing on a tablet computer? I definitely prefer my Topre, but touch typing on my iPad was not nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. I type half as fast and my accuracy takes a modest hit, but it's more than workable enough that I stopped carrying a laptop around with me.
While, I can't see a day in which I'll be preferring a virtual keyboard over any physical keyboard, it'll be an ass kicking invention if someone out there comes up with some viable virtual keyboard with some kind of physical feedback to improve the typing experience. It'll be a breakthrough for a lot of people.
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One day or another Apple will patent the warm water...
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I'll always prefer a laptop over a tablet, simply because tabletr has far less usability. Yes, if you just want to watch a few movies and browse the internet a tablet may be fine, but having 200 machines in your household is kind of a turn off. For example you could easily use a HTPC, NAS, desktop PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone, gaming console etc. at home, but what the ****? Imagine keeping all of those up-to-date.
Still that is what people like steve jobs and microsoft wants us to do so they can make more profit, but I prefer keeping things simple. However, because my desk is always vacant, I think I'll always have a keyboard right on it. Sorry, but having a tablet or touch PC at home at your desk is just like being one-legged or something.
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Well I totally biffed on this one. I posted the same article about 8 hours after this OP. I didn't see it... sorry!
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(http://www.upl.co/uploads/humortyping.gif)
Next keyboard will be virtual. You have your finger movements recorded by special gloves, then you can touch-type without a keyboard.
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Next keyboard will be virtual. You have your finger movements recorded by special gloves, then you can touch-type without a keyboard.
Makes me think of "Johnny Mnemonic". It came on cable recently and I was showing my kids that Keanu Reeves was jacking in nearly 5 years before The Matrix came around.
(http://www.explore-science-fiction-movies.com/images/johnny-mnemonic-internet.jpg)
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Next keyboard will be virtual. You have your finger movements recorded by special gloves, then you can touch-type without a keyboard.
Makes me think of "Johnny Mnemonic". It came on cable recently and I was showing my kids that Keanu Reeves was jacking in nearly 5 years before The Matrix came around. I didn't read that but did read Neuromancer which has been a movie "in development" for some time, maybe someday.
(http://www.explore-science-fiction-movies.com/images/johnny-mnemonic-internet.jpg)
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Well I totally biffed on this one. I posted the same article about 8 hours after this OP. I didn't see it... sorry!
You can always close or delete the other thread!
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How long has Apple had this patent filed? Looks like Art Lebedev (http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-tactus/) beat them to the party on this concept by a few years... Now something like that I would be interested in as a secondary input device. It would be handy for virtual faders etc... oh wait... I can do that now, its called a touchscreen. How novel.
As far as the Johnny Mnemonic reference, the future is NOW.
Perigrine 'data gloves'
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Sony 'eye phones'
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Neuromancer film might actually get done now that Vincenzo Natali is doing it. What I would really like to see is a new videogame set in the sprawl or bridge universe.
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Didn't they already have this patent from buying out whoever made the touchstream ST?
what are they doing, planning a patent war against themselves?
Meh, whatever, the makers of the optimus maximus keyboard have a better design anyway, it allows for non-staggered keys.
suppose this means 1cN actuation keyboards are soon to be mainstream :D can only be good for RSI sufferers.