Minimalist Glass mulittouch keyboard

[Retox]

Not sure if this has been posted yet:

http://www.unfinishedman.com/minimalist-multi-touch-glass-keyboard-and-mouse/

[Gin]

Yeah, it's not practical.

[weenis]

I like the part where they list the benefits over conventional-

The multi-touch glass keyboard is not only cool looking but it also has a few advantages over a conventional keyboard.  There should be none of the annoying noise when keys are hit, since the surface is flat, you don’t have to worry about food crumbs getting stuck between the keys, and if you spill a bit of coffee, it should be easily wiped off.

Don't see much there that looks advantageous to me...

Oh, and the major disadvantage I see is it breaking, like glass has been known to do.

[Oqsy]

Give him yr money.

Looks legit.

[ishtob]

you can't park your fingers on the home row it would trigger the senser

[WhiteFireDragon]

this is a pretty cool concept, but not practical: try air typing on your desk and see how hard it is to not actually feel keys

[sordna]

you can't park your fingers on the home row it would trigger the senser

Very likely so, but not necessarily. I have a FIngerworks Touchstream, which allows you to rest your hands on the surface. It detects the number of fingers you have on the surface and "understands" your intentions. Of course, it's very unlikely this glass keyboard will come even close to the Touchstream's capabilities, Fingerworks products (even though discontinued years ago) are still way ahead of everything else. Which is why a used Touchstream can still fetch $1,500 on ebay.

[JayG30]

Well, you could use haptic feedback and even have sound generated from the computer on keypress.

I spent some time a few years back learning about all the different approaches to multi-touch technology (there are many). One of the biggest hurtles to me with making multi-touch truly useful for home/office PC use is text entry. Replacing the mouse is so simple and intuitive but not so easy to replace a keyboard. It was just recently I started getting interested in learning more about keyboards and naturally I've been thinking about the touchscreen-keyboard capabilities.

Some neat features it could add is, like I stated, haptic feedback that could be fully customization to provide the tactile feedback (like your phone but with more customization). Sound could be generated from the computer speakers or an internal speaker could be put into the keyboard, again full customization so you could use whatever sound you want or even assign different sounds to different keys. Also, layout changes couldn't be any easier with a simple file selection on your machine (no more ANSI/ISO whining), maybe you could even make it possible to drag/drop keys around on the keyboard. You could change the key colors/images to whatever you wanted. Also, when you press modifiers/enter the 2nd layer/whatever you could dynamically change what is displayed on the keys which I think would be pretty nice.

In my opinion the biggest problem is allowing someone to rest there wrists/palms on the keyboard without causing issues. Without this it causing ergonomic issues. This is a problem that you don't get with cellphones since they are finger devices. This isn't some new revelation though, people know this limitation and have been working on it. One of the common approaches is on the software side you configure what is registered/distinguished as an input and what isn't. This can be controlled by the size (ie. your palm is much larger then your fingers), shape (a wrist compared to a circular/oval finger press), and even pressure sensitivity.

I will say the technology in that article wouldn't be my first choice. They are talking about FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) which is nice technology but requiring a camera I don't think makes sense for a keyboard. I think there are simpler more straightforward approaches. Also, glass wouldn't necessarily be the smartest choice by any stretch of the imagination. I'm thinking more along the lines of flexible OLED technology.

When I use to mess around with this stuff I found the site nuigroup.com very helpful. If you are interested in multitouch at all I highly suggest you go read around on NUIGROUP. Download the software, setup a simple setup, and test stuff out. It's very cool (and free last I checked).

[fireball87]

I for some reason still think that for any legitimate business tabletop or wall, you still need to have real keyboards for those who need them.  I like a lot of the concepts of multi-touch systems, but there's no reason to actually due away with other (superior and proven) technologies for those systems.  A few provided wireless keyboards could go a long way for such a setup.

[JayG30]

(superior and proven) technologies

Proven, yes. Superior...I won't say no but I won't say yes either. The ideas are still to new and fluid to make such a definitive statement.
I feel that this is all part of a natural progression in UI, to make the user more directly connected to the machines which we use.
I personally feel for NUI style interfaces to become truly integrated into the home/work environment (not just little devices that can't fully replace a true PC) that it will require a revolution in software, not a simple evolution. With all drastic changes there will be resistance.

[fireball87]

Eh, I've not seen a new input method style that in any way compares to a keyboard for data entry.  I seriously doubt that I will any time soon.  With current known input methods, the most usable I could possibly think of is a chorded input method, where the default input is all fingers touching the display.  That still would be a lot worse then a keyboard.  Anything that requires any form of major movements wouldn't end up being all that comfortable or fast.  Anything that would require pin point presses wouldn't be very precise.  Actually, you can create comparable input methods then the keyboard on a multi-touch display... they just don't work well with the english language.

--edit-- and note I'm only talking about input methods built upon multi-touch.  So we can ignore the obvious scifi mind reader devices and such.

[SGRX]

I could see a glass keyboard having an aesthetic appeal, but I don't see the point functionally in replacing a working mechanical keyboard with a glass multi-touch keyboard that is the same size, and probably causes a greater amount of hand fatigue due to the repetitive impact on a solid, unyielding surface. It's not more portable, it's not more functional, it would be more expensive with relatively few advantages (mostly aesthetic, unless you're really sold on the idea of eating dinner at the keys). The upside is that it will look good as a piece of random tech candy in whatever bad movie/TV show it inevitably winds up in, if it goes into production.

[iindigo]

Fatigue might not be as bad as you imagine it. It might be just be like changing to a lighter switch; eventually, you acclimate and start typing more lightly. This is based on how I thumb-type on my iPhone - I don't put any significant force into typing, I just touch each key. Typing on this keyboard would probably be similar... you'd just barely bump each "key".

It probably isn't the most practical, though. I could see this thing being used in the reception area of a design firm or some such.

[sordna]

Well, you could use haptic feedback and even have sound generated from the computer on keypress.

I can think of a simpler way to improve the (amazing) Fingerworks Touchstream which is to make the surface raised where the keys are, in other words instead of a completely flat surface, make sculpted keys. They should be really short / rounded so you can still use the surface for mousing.

[weenis]

We will be using "real" keyboards up to the point in time where we directly plug into the machine...

And even then, we will probably have the keyboard handy in case the "interface" doesn't work.