
A Touchpad Embedded Keyboard - sahin-boydas
https://www.mokibo.com/
======
DominoTree
BlackBerry has been doing this with the keyboards on their phones for some
time now

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn6DRcUFj8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn6DRcUFj8Y)

~~~
PerfectElement
Came here to say the same thing. I used the KeyOne and now the Key2 and I
can't imagine going back to software keyboards.

~~~
k_
Did you notice any improvement on this in the Key2?

I have the KeyOne and while I love the feature and it works somewhere between
OK and excellent, I have trouble correctly using the typing-oriented gestures
(auto complete, delete word). I end up avoiding them because I just can't make
them work with near 100% accuracy (accuracy being one of the main points of a
physical keyboard to me).

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raindeer2
Built a keyboard like this 10 years ago. Always wondered when it would be
launched as a product. :)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltNSCOzxbvY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltNSCOzxbvY)

~~~
mncharity
In case the soon-to-be-product Tactual keyboard[1] doesn't work out, I
wonder...

Imagine you already have optical tracking available for XY finger position. So
all you want from the keyboard is sensitive "is the finger near xy _really_
touching?" bits. Without compromising the expert typing experience (eg
FlickBoard). Any thoughts on nice ways to approach this?

Spray every keycap with 4 conductive pads, and run 400+ wires... :/

[1] [https://vimeo.com/258421095](https://vimeo.com/258421095)

~~~
raindeer2
What touch pads use and also we did is capacitive sensors, but they don't
really measure if something touches normally, they just give a high response
if you are very close. Touchpads are covered by a insulating film. But, if you
already know the x,y position then one option could potentially be to make the
keys of a conductive plastic and measure the change in capacitance when they
get touched. You just need "one" wire that goes to every key. Treat all keys
as one sensor.

~~~
mncharity
With optical tracking, one can, for example, have all fingers resting on home
row, with one finger tapping. But it's hard to distinguish actually touching
from merely being near the surface, so one exaggerates the taps to rise above
tracking noise. Which is sort of ok for taps, but is a pretty bad user
experience for say finger-stroking scrolling.

So the objective is to have per-finger high-quality is-it-touching-or-not-
quite touch determination, on a good keyboard. Perhaps made easier by having
high-quality XY position available from the optical tracking.

A keyboard where every keycap was a multitouch touchpad would work... but
seems problematic.

Monotouch pads are more feasible, but imagine home row fingers now shifted
half a key to the left, so finger tips touch multiple keys, and keys are
touched by multiple fingers. Now detect tapping, when the tapped key remains
continuously touched, and the tapping finger may be in contact with other
adjacent fingers.

One _could_ wire together all keys, if say you have finger-tip electrodes. And
wired fingers have the bonus of providing good touch determination for finger-
finger contact, instead of just finger-key. But the pragmatics of electrodes
on skin are messy, and gloves badly sacrifice typing experience.

Ah well. Thanks. Perhaps the Tactual PRISM keyboard will work out.

------
nicoburns
Looks this would be perfect as a "sofa keyboard" for controlling a home media
center or similar. I guess that the main difficulty would be not pressing the
keys while using it as a touchpad, but I imagine it would be possible to get
used to that.

~~~
dogma1138
Not sure how it’s any better than the Logitech K400 or the Microsoft All in
One keyboard, especially since those don’t need any special software support
so can work with your Android TV, Apple TV, HTPC and essentially any other
device that supports USB HID, and those cost only like $20-30 I don’t see this
thing being sold for less than $150-200.

~~~
climb_stealth
I have only owned the Logitech K400 before and its touchpad is rubbish. I
threw it out because it was so frustrating to use. Lots of accidental taps
when just trying to move the mouse pointer and issues like that.

Is the Microsoft All In One any better?

~~~
mikewhy
I'm using the Logitech K830. I don't have many issues with the trackpad on
that model. It's not great, like your average Windows laptop's trackpad, but I
nowhere near throwing it out cause it's so bad.

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pintxo
I don't get it. The "keep your fingers on the keyboard and use the mouse"
thing has been solved ages ago with the trackpoint [1]. It's the number one
reason for me not to buy a MacBook.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick)

~~~
elyobo
Figuring out how to disable that damn thing was my top priority when I had a
thinkpad. Maybe I should have stuck with it, but it was just an annoying thing
that was impossible to control and easily knocked to where I didn't want it to
be (a problem when input focus is mouse based rather than foreground app
based).

So this looks interesting to me... but possibly suffers from the same problem
of inadvertent activation.

~~~
pintxo
It is the other way around for me, I always disable the track pad, as I else
will randomly move the cursor while typing, which is really annoying.

~~~
elyobo
Yeah, I have tweaked the settings on them before; they generally have a sort
of palm detection that prevents them from misfiring which works pretty well
for me - only in one case have I ever had to adjust a laptop for that.

------
modeless
A while ago when I was doing a lot of VR I wanted something like this so I
could see where my hands were touching the keyboard while wearing a VR
headset. Hand trackers aren't precise enough for that, and video passthrough
also isn't great for various reasons. Add a Vive tracker to this and you could
potentially use it fairly naturally in VR.

~~~
aasasd
Sounds like touch typing is for you. It's even called “blind typing” in some
languages.

~~~
modeless
I am a touch typist. But not for every key on the keyboard. But more
importantly, touch typing doesn't help you position your hands when moving
them from something else to the keyboard.

~~~
abrichr
> touch typing doesn't help you position your hands when moving them from
> something else to the keyboard.

I thought that's what the bumps on the f and j keys were for.

~~~
modeless
They are rather small and take a bit of work to find when you are blind.

~~~
aasasd
I have this problem on ‘j’ but not on ‘f’―the comparison lead me to the
thought that I really should glue a grain of plastic on the ‘j’. We here are
supposed to be hackers and to do-it-ourselves, after all.

The same can be done to other keys, I think―if you have the unfortunate
configuration of an unsplit F-row, for example.

------
waltertamboer
They are not sure whether there are 80 or 90 sensors in the keyboard. The
video says 90, the descriptive text says 80 :')

Other than that, it looks like a nice keyboard. I wonder if mouse activity and
keyboard activity conflict with each other, that your mouse starts moving
while you only wanted to type or something...

~~~
sundvor
I want one for my HTPC, if it turns out to be a good one. :-)

I have two mice on my workstation. At least in Windows it just accumulates the
movement. E.g. move left left, right right about the same amount and you'll
have the cursor just moving around a little bit but staying mostly in place.

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hjk05
Sounds a lot like fingerworks who had a similar product on the market I think
about 14years ago or so. As I remember it they got snatched up by Apple and
ditched the product. I always wished they’d release a slightly better touchpad
tech version of it, at a more reasonable price point.

~~~
KyleBrandt
I believe apple got them just for the multitouch:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks)

------
fxfan
Does anybody here use keynav?

I have been a ThinkPad user all my life but the trackpoint hurt my fingers
(like another commented here)

Mouse and trackpad need a switch.

I like keynav but its slow and I'm wondering if with prqctise I will actually
get somewhere or will forever remain slow?

~~~
equalunique
I love the TrackPoint, but finally I too am noticing a strain in my index
finger.

I am hoping to take things to the next level.

Currently am looking at wiring a game controller-style thumb joystick to a
Contra keyboard.

~~~
mncharity
Configuring your acceleration profile can be the difference between awful and
wonderful. On linux, the default experience can be poor. And some older
TrackPoint hardware is now less well supported than it once was.

------
innocentoldguy
I used to have a keyboard back in 2005 that was made by a company called
FingerWorks. The keyboard came in two halves and used virtual keys and
gestures. You could get it with either Qwerty or Dvorak layouts printed on the
smooth surface. They also made a replacement keyboard that you could install
in MacBook Pros. Apple acquired the company in 2005 and used the technology in
its products.

I really liked my FingerWorks keyboard, but it kind of died out for me once
FingerWorks stopped producing firmware updates for it. I don't know how well
this keyboard works, but I'd be happy with it if it worked at least as well as
my FingerWorks keyboard did.

------
sleepybrett
Flat keycaps means it's not really suitable for any prolonged used. The newish
mac keyboards solve the key homing problem with large gaps between keys, but
it's still not great experience.

------
jamespo
Lenovo have similar:

[https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/accessories-and-
monitors/keyboa...](https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/accessories-and-
monitors/keyboards-and-mice/keyboards/KB-MICE-BO-L500-controller/p/GX30N73442)

------
sathomasga
Anyone else notice the copyright on the web site is 2012? Presumably just a
bad copy-and-paste, but weird nonetheless.

~~~
mncharity
> copyright on the web site is 2012?

Given the many abandoned companies in HID space, I checked... Wayback Machine
has the web site as new in 2019.

------
KirinDave
Didn't TouchStream buy up all this IP in multiple ways then get bought by
Apple?

I still have a functional touchstream and it's a fantastic device. The drivers
even still sort work on Linux.

~~~
hboon
I thought FingerWorks did their own R&D.

~~~
KirinDave
I thought they did their own patents ;)

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mncharity
For proximity and 3D, there's also the not-yet-released Tactual PRISM
keyboard[1] with depth sensing.

And optical tracking.[2] Though that last millimeter of "is it actually
touching or not quite" is hard to do without hardware support from the
keyboard.

[1] [https://vimeo.com/258421095](https://vimeo.com/258421095)
[http://www.tactuallabs.com/](http://www.tactuallabs.com/) [2]
[https://frl.nyu.edu/multi-touch-with-realsense-
camera/](https://frl.nyu.edu/multi-touch-with-realsense-camera/)

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hprotagonist
That would drive me absolutely and completely insane.

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djsumdog
I didn't see a price anywhere. Did I miss it? How much do they plan to sell
these for?

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Ocha
why is signup for preorder so detailed about the user? it even requires phone
number. Most of the questions were so sketchy I gave up and didnt sign up.
Would not be surprised if all that data ends up in wrong hands and will be
used for phishing.

~~~
kbumsik
Because it's a Korean company.

It's far less common to use email to contact a customer in Korea. As you can
see email is not even a required field in the sign-up page. The customers
prefer to receive notifications via SMS (or Kakaotalk nowadays) then email.
Actually email is almost meaningless in Korea for contacting method to
consumers.

If the company send official release news to sing-up customers on email only,
they might complain that the company contact them on email for such an
important announcement.

Email is the least serious communication channel in Korea. Even in Business-
to-Business situations email is usually used for sending files, not for
communications.

~~~
equalunique
Thanks for this interesting insight into Korean culture & customs.

~~~
kbumsik
No problem :) Because of these cultures Koreans often have worst email habits
for the western standards. Most of them don't know what CC and BCC are.

The noticeable one is they often have worst email names such as
cute_girl90@company.com and they use it _in business_. So don't suprise if you
get a wired email name from Koreans.

------
MattBearman
I think it would bother me having the click buttons separate from the
'touchpad', but a cool concept none the less.

Can anyone see how you switch between keyboard and touchpad mode? Or does it
guess based on gestures? I tried to find it in the user manual, but it appears
to only be in Korean.

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jaclaz
As a side note, I am perplexed by the:

> Mokibo saves 60% of mode chnage between keyboard and touchpad which are
> 50-100 hours in a year.

Does really that (or keyboard/mouse change) amount to 50-100 hours in a year?

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duado
The challenge here is that what makes a great touchpad (unbroken surface) is
the opposite of the keyboards I like (gaps between keys). I’m interested to
try this to see if they’ve cracked that nut.

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SomeHacker44
I would probably try this if the price point is reasonable.

Years ago I had a machine aluminum frame that held a wireless mac desktop
keyboard and associated mouse together as a single unit and allowed typing and
touchpading on the desktop just like a laptop. I found this to be much better
than a touchpad to either side of the keyboard and especially much better than
a touchpad to the right of a 104-key sized keyboard. Would love to have that
again.

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dogma1138
I was half expecting them send me a DNA sample collection kit with those
intrusive questions, they ask for all but your astrological sign and favorite
color....

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jitl
If all that’s being sensed is touched(A) or touched(SPACEBAR) with no x,y
reporting, I can’t imagine the experience would be good enough to please a
MacBook trackpad user. I can see the low-rez touch sensing being ok for
gestures, but a poor substitute for real multitouch experience.

For example, the pinch-to-zoom demo looks janky compared to two-finger pinch
on an actual MacBook trackpad.

~~~
robbrown451
Look at the video at the bottom of the page (say, at 27 seconds in) -- it is
very clear that it has higher resolution than just which key you are touching.

It says there are 80 touch sensors, but presumably each sensor is like a mini
track pad, not just an "on or off".

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bitwize
This reminds me of the Noahpad, one of the sillier ideas to come out of the
Great Netbook Craze of the late 2000s. That thing looked like an ergonomic
nightmare and RSI waiting to happen.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FovGyv96a30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FovGyv96a30)

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acupofnope
I'm not sure what to make of this. On the surface, it does sounds like a great
idea! But I'm not sure if the touch bits would work in a satisfactory manner.
The touch surface discontinuity bothers me. Regardless, I hope they produce a
great product as I can see myself using it to control my home setup.

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Tepix
I can see this working for me. And it would be highly efficient and ergonomic.
Would definitely like to try it.

~~~
jstimpfle
For touch typists, this is definitely not ergonomic.

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dkersten
If only it were multitouch, then it'd be ideal for the 10gui concept:
[http://10gui.com/](http://10gui.com/)

But... I hate laptop-style keyboards and can't see myself moving back after
switching to mechanical keyboards, if I can at all help it.

~~~
RandallBrown
It is multitouch. They demonstrate two fingered scrolling and pinch to zoom.

~~~
dkersten
I suppose I should have been more specific and said ten-finger multitouch.

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gattilorenz
I normally use a Microsoft natural keyboard and I lay a magic TouchPad over
the numpad/home/end button area.

This way it's ergonomic and productive, as I never move my hands. Seems like a
better solution, to me, than passing your fingers through the bumpy keys
"islands"...

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robbrown451
I'd like to try it. I could imagine getting used to it quickly.

People seem to be confused as to whether the resolution is one unit per key,
or if there is a grid on each key. Clearly, based on the video, it is much
higher than one unit of resolution per key.

~~~
extropy
Which could still be implemented as a single sensor per key + interpolation. I
which case it really depends how good the software is in edge cases. Like two
fingers close together in untypical location.

Noting enough machine learning cannot solve :)

------
bestham
Reminds me of [1]

[1]:
[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-03658-...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-03658-3_30)

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bluedino
At least one manufacturer will use this to make a 21:9 notebook.

~~~
acuozzo
Kind of like the HP Jornada!

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kolyaio
What's the point with using this thing?

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empyrical
I wonder if this is Windows Precision Touchpad compatible? As far as I can
tell, there are not many options for precision touchpads that are not in a
laptop

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kkarakk
so when the switches fail you gotta plug in a mouse anyways. switches fail on
an average of one every 5 years in my experience(shorter if you're using one
of the chinese clones like kailh instead of cherry since they don't have as
good QC in my experience)

These guys haven't mentioned switches so i guess they're using cheaper
variants to cut down costs. something to be aware of...

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wenbert
The arrow keys. Ugh. That set-up - left and right keys same size as normal
keys - I could never get used to it on the new macbook keyboards

~~~
RandomGuyDTB
I dunno, I think I've used a MacBook that had that type of layout. Either that
or it was another notebook. That layout is pretty common.

------
tambourine_man
I don’t get this. You must feel the “bumps” from key edges in touchpad mode,
right?

If so, it’s terrible as a trackpad.

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koffisam
Tap to Click on this would be amazing

~~~
m0dest
_Clicking_ is hands-down the hardest problem with this type of device. Their
hardware mouse button placement is not ergonomic; the user in their video has
to use a separate hand just to click!

• If you allow tap-to-click, users are likely to trigger false positives from
resting on the keys

• If you allow press-to-click, users will be unable to click in many positions
(e.g. the intersection of 3 keys)

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skinnyfatcoder
For some occasions i think i'd prefer a keyboard embedded touchpad

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polyterative
A bad keyboard and a bad touchpad

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mesozoic
They were so worried about whether they could they didn't stop to think
whether they should.

