Are Keyboards on Laptops the Next Thing to Go?

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27084/?p1=blogs

by olalonde • 15 years ago

19 24 15 years ago

Not unless laptop manufacturers wanted to create the next gorilla arm. Using an input device without mechanical feedback will not work for serious data entry, our hands aren't designed for it. It would cause a huge increase in RSI.

ajanuary• 15 years ago

Isn't that a little like saying touchpads will never take off because they're not good enough for precision movement? If you're doing "serious data entry" you'd get an external keyboard.

shabble• 15 years ago

Maybe if they can produce a truly realistic mechanical feedback system. The 'haptic touchscreens' I've seen have generally been 'we buzz this little offset-counterweight pager motor when you hit something'

Doing it right would probably require some sort of truly flexible (and incredibly resillient) display, with some sort of adaptive force-feedback (matrix of tiny pistons with pressure control, or something)

The patently apple article linked gives a bit more detail about the image presented, but it still looks very low resolution (although there looks to be some novelty in suppressing feedback from surrounding haptic elements)

PedroCandeias• 15 years ago

There's a lot more to the feedback one gets from a good keyboard than just "tiny vibrations". Haptic virtual keyboards may well end up replacing hackers' / writers' primitive push button ones one day, but they must get pretty damn good before they do.

That being said, I'm quite certain this is the future. At least for mainstream users.

AndrewDucker3• 15 years ago

I find keys by touch. If I'm pressing ctrl-F4 (for instance) I'm find the F4 by the slightly larger gap between it and F5.

Removing this possibility would make typing a _lot_ harder.

6ren2• 15 years ago

To find that gap, your fingers would have to move across, feeling a difference between a key and a gap between keys, until they feel a larger gap.

Feeling different vibrations when your fingers at those places would impart the same information. e.g. if _ is vibration, and a space is no vibration, the function keys would feel like this:

  ___ ___ ___ ___   ___ ___ ___ ___   ___ ___ ___ ___

AndrewDucker3• 15 years ago

If they can react extremely quickly, and to a light touch, then maybe it will work.

I'm happy to give it a go, but it really is going to have to be very impressive to allow touch typists to function.

zobzu• 15 years ago

everyone knows how much better it is to type on tablets, right? right.. yeah well that's why the keyboard isn't going anywhere.

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

It very well could be, but I very much doubt that the keyboard will be replaced in the near future. 10 years? Maybe. But not for the near future. People are too ingrained to let keyboards go any time soon.

azov• 15 years ago

I believe keyboards are on the way out regardless of whether haptic technology ever develops to the point where it can replace a real keyboard. Few people do serious data entry. On-screen keyboard is good enough for overwhelming majority of users. I think physical keyboard will become a peripheral device used in some professional settings, but not by an average user.

alextingle• 15 years ago

It's amazing that these people are working so hard to recreate the experience of "typing" on a ZX81 keyboard.

Most laptop (and desktop) keyboards are pretty horrible already. So I'm sure that the final step to these awful abominations is not far away. Depressing.

chucknthem• 15 years ago

Every time I hear someone argue that the mouse or keyboard is going away, I'm reminded of Chung Lee's ignite talk about why that's not the case. http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2011/07/myth-of-dying-m...

There are human computer interfaces for different computer sizes. The mouse and keyboard are good for "human scale" devices like the desktop and laptop. Touch is great for pocket sized devices, and motion is good for even larger devices. The mouse and keyboard aren't going away, it's just that we'll have more non-"human scale" devices.

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

I don't think. Actually, I think it's tablets that will be receiving keyboards, a la Asus Transformer style. You get the best of both worlds.

rdtsc• 15 years ago

They'll have to rip my IBM model M out my cold dead fingers!

I have a tablet. So often I try to type on it & use a terminal, and it is terrible. I get used to the size and key configuration but what I have problem with is hitting my fingers in the glass surface repeatedly. Doing it for a minute or two is ok. Doing for an hour is painful.

Also noticed on a tablet I become more of a passive consumer of a information -- I read mostly. On the desktop I am more inclined to produce -- I write code, type comments, write email.

acangiano2• 15 years ago

> Also noticed on a tablet I become more of a passive consumer of information

As I mention in my upcoming book on blogging, my workflow works exactly like that and I definitely recommend it. I mostly produce on my MacBook Pro, while I use the iPad to consume information and stay up to date at night, thanks to apps like Reeder and Flipboard. This way I keep work and "play" (well, less crucial work) separate.

AndrewDucker3• 15 years ago

The thing is - blogging isn't work for me, it's play...

angus77• 15 years ago

Interesting. I also find that when I read Wikipedia, for example, on my laptop, and I see a typo or something, I'm almost always inclined to fix it. On anything with a touch screen, however, it's just far too much bother. Could the rise odd theipad see the decline on the participatory Web 2.0 and the rise of the consumerist Web 3.0?

pland• 15 years ago

I've been looking at HiWave (formerly NXT) in Cambridge (UK) to let me use their HIHX14C exciters for tablet touch panels, in order to let give my users the effect of depressing mechanical keys when touching the panel surface. I hope to combine this with the fact that these exciters can be used essentially as drivers to conduct sound through the panel, so I can turn the whole tablet into a speaker. You can see the parts here: http://bit.ly/nc16KY

Not that I expect my target audience (people fighting attention deficit in dementia or in childhood) to type for hours every day, but I wonder if this might be a way to improve the experience and accuracy of typing on the whole: haptic/sonic feedback...

merraksh• 15 years ago

I wonder how this will fit to people who type on a keyboard 10-12 hours a day.

The advantage with virtual keyboard is the infinite reconfiguration capabilities w.r.t. repositioning of keys for reasons of ergonomics.

For the same reasons, though, keyboards designed with ergonomics in mind (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomic_keyboard) can't be replicated because of size and three-dimensional profile.

eulo• 15 years ago

Oh dear god please NO!

eftpotrm• 15 years ago

If a manufacturer can produce a virtual keyboard that I can type blind on at 100wpm, without slowly drifting off target, and correct typos that I've felt rather than seen, then we might be getting somewhere. Until then, no way.

Which might, I suspect, be up there with affordable tabletop cold fusion.

pasbesoin• 15 years ago

No one's mentioned. Keys also serve as a shock absorber. I speculate that years of tapping/rapping/pounding on a glass or hard plastic surface might produce significant joint problems.

P.S. I'm referring not just, or primarily, to the force applied, but the the suddenness of the transition to full pressure (cushioned only by one's soft tissue).

Are Keyboards on Laptops the Next Thing to Go?

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