Attending Keycon, besides being fun and THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD, has also re-stimulated dead areas in my cranium.
I keep revolving around these same products, knowing they are drastically imperfect and tarnishing my ideas of INPUT NIRVANA for the last 5 years. 5 YEARS! I can do better than be in a stalemate for 5 YEARS over something so simple.
Look:
-Datahand
-Alphagrip
-Split Kinesis
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-RollerMouse
-Apple/Logitech Trackpads
-Integrated mousing
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-Software/firmware
As far as I know input is, can or will be either via mental, auditory, or physical.
Mental is problematic, I'll let someone else solve that design issue. Wires coming out of head or a massive Bluetooth chip glued to skull?
Auditory is acceptable in only certain circumstances such as you alone in a room and not listening to music.
Physical is our domain, for better or worse (obviously worse since we spend so much time tinkering with it).
My latest incarnation was to take the Split Kinesis key wells only (no casing) and make them hand-mounted. Not chair mounted. Sooooo…….
This is IT:
Datahand-like 5 direction fingertip actuators mounted into a half-glove skeleton (literally a wire-frame) that is semi-firm for 4/8 fingers. Thumbs may have more/less. If there is chording, it can be on one hand, no chording it will be on two hands.
Can be slipped on/off without using the other hand, it will be a slip on from the side so it doesn't fall off, very little weight. Palm mounted, so no wrist movement.
Electronics could be remote.
Fingertip movement will be LESS THAN DATAHAND so the not-so-awesome side-to-side MOVEMENT becomes side-to-side PRESSURE….very different.
Mousing intergrated, like Datahand.
May not be finger tip, may be finger actuated, you know what I mean?
Possible drawbacks:
May not be the fastest for 100WPM.
Partial glove/mechanism on hands, different that placing hands on something or holding something.
Durability.
Portability.
This would eliminate any RSI, misc. health related problems. We're talking about greatly minimized movement for fingers and no wrist positioning issues. Missing/fused digits are a problem. I have 80-85% of this in my head right now. Can't be much of a stretch to fill in the 15-20% of incomplete/difficult to implement balance.
Technology exists for this. Skill exists for this. Manufacturing exists for this. Design exists for this. Everything needed exists and I saw it all Keycon West 2014.
Does anyone follow this train of thought? Do I need to give more detail?