
AirType - pajju
http://airtype.io/
======
flyinglizard
If it works well, the demand is there, but we all know that, don't we?

The question is whether it works well in real use, and no landing page can
show that. I can likewise put up an email subscription page for a $20k flying
car.

Making this product work 50% of the time takes some serious work, but making
it work the 99.5% of the time which would make it qualify as a keyboard
replacement is something else entirely.

I wouldn't waste potential customers time with a landing page like that, and
their video is downright insulting. Spend your time and resources making
something that works instead.

Anyway, with all the buzz around hardware startups, I would expect more
landing pages like this to crop up. People simply don't realize how difficult
making good tangibles is, but they will find out soon enough.

~~~
cwe
Agree completely, just wanted to point out that 99.5% accuracy would mean 5
typos within the length of your comment. For any significant amount of typing
it would need to be way more accurate. But then again, all this thing really
is is a super-charged autocorrect, so they could probably fix those errors.

~~~
mey
Or spawn a whole new class of damn you auto-corrects.

~~~
bsimpson
People who type a lot may be interested in moving away from the keyboard-and-
screen model for ergonomic reasons. "This is how you don't fuck up your body
while working" is a lot stronger selling point than "Wouldn't not carrying a
keyboard with your tablet be nice?"

People who type a lot are likely to be working with some level of jargon
(variable names for programmers, macros and cell codes for data analysts,
etc.) rather than the pure prose autocorrect is designed for.

AFAIK, there aren't any good demos of autocorrecting keyboards for technical
domains. That said, TextMate's autocomplete works pretty well most of the
time. If you could seed the autospell dictionary with a combination of
language-specific keywords and the variables that have already been defined in
your project (ala TextMate), that could be pretty powerful for technical
people trying to be productive with alternate input methods.

~~~
goblin89
> "This is how you don't fuck up your body while working"

As an aside, “Using Python to code by voice”[0] is quite an inspiring
presentation on the topic.

[0]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI#t=542](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI#t=542)

~~~
johnzim
That talk is why I switched to a standing desk and changed my keyboards.

------
ChuckMcM
Hmm, Dave Rosenthal suggested such a keyboard when the first accelerometers
came out, basically put one on each finger tip and 'train' it by your typing
on your regular keyboard, 'use' it by making some gesture and then typing. His
concept though counted on 8 3DOF accelerometers per hand (5 on the fingers,
one on either side of the palm and one on the wrist. The sketch showed
something like fingerless biking gloves that had blobs and wires attached to
your fingernails.

I'm not sure if it goes past the proposal stage however, the folks who were
researching those sorts of issues were at UC Berkeley in the late 80's so that
would be a good place for a literature search.

If this can be built and be as reliable as a keyboard (and I make
mistakes/miss keys on my keyboard too) it could be really really useful. At
some point, something like this and something like Glass will be a 'terminal'
to the internet. The Myo folks have some interesting ideas in this space too,
not clear if they get the fidelity they need through the upper arm though.

~~~
vitovito
You've mentioned Rosenthal before, about the Myo:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5280700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5280700)

Was that conversation and/or those sketches ever published? I didn't find
anything in a brief Google Scholar search. They'd be interesting to see.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I sent you email. Checked with Dave and he does not recall that anyone pursued
it, but that isn't necessarily the definitive word.

------
25cf
I think this is going in the wrong direction. Tactile feedback is so crucial
for keyboards and this just completely removes it. In my opinion, technologies
like the morphing touchscreen keyboard[1] are the future.

[1] [http://tactustechnology.com/](http://tactustechnology.com/)

~~~
wklauss
Neither. Truth is we are a generation that grew up using keyboards. The one
coming after us will consider normal to use an onscreen keyboard or voice
recognition. This is a problem that will solve itself.

~~~
rayiner
No. Humans depend on feedback loops to coordinate their fine motor movements.
Otherwise absolute positioning accuracy is bad. Even an on-screen keyboard
provides such feedback. Typing in the air doesn't.

~~~
sejje
So type on the table?

Seriously, wouldn't that be the same amount of feedback as a touchscreen
keyboard? Flat, and you get the wrong letter when you miss?

~~~
mintone
No, a table gives no feedback whatsoever in the manner that he's referring to
at least. When you hit a key on a keyboard the key sinks into the board, you
have a positive 'strike'. If you miss the key slightly then it feels different
and you'll know before the wrong letter appears - this is what is meant by a
feedback loop.

~~~
sejje
That's off-topic. We're talking about touchscreen keyboards, as is very clear
in my post, and we won't pretend their keys sink.

------
jimrandomh
I really want a portable keyboard that I can type on quickly while walking
around, but I don't think these guys have anything like a product. This looks
like an empty web page to measure interest.

~~~
daeken
That's what I'm hunting for as well; have been for the past few days.
Something like BlueTwiddler (
[http://hewner.com/programming/](http://hewner.com/programming/) ) is pretty
much perfect for me, but it was never commercialized. I'm thinking about
picking up [http://theperegrine.com/](http://theperegrine.com/) , adding
Bluetooth support, and turning it into essentially a chording keyboard for
wearable computers. I need something that will let me type on Glass, the Epson
Moverio, and my phone with ease. I'm hoping in the next year that I'll be able
to ditch non-wearable computers, from an interface perspective (I'll still
have them for heavy lifting, of course).

~~~
MadMoogle
The Peregrine looks to be the most promising platform for this kind of input.
The only limitation I've seen is you need the finger dexterity of a guitar
player to quickly and accurately type that way. Then again, the only other
solution I've seen is the four button spiffchorder[0] and a trackball in the
other hand. I don't like those only because you can't do anything else with
your hands while you're using them.

[0]
[http://chorder.cs.vassar.edu/spiffchorder/forside](http://chorder.cs.vassar.edu/spiffchorder/forside)

------
gerbal
I have a hard time trusting a product when it's promo video shows someone
mashing random keys pretending to type.

~~~
johnzim
I think he's hitting the right keys though

~~~
LesZedCB
they weren't. I noticed it right away and it annoyed me.

------
macrael
I wish the demo video had actually been a demo. They typed nonsense on the
real keyboard and then flailed similarly with the AirType.

~~~
cshimmin
Honestly. For a moment I thought this was another [1] viral in-universe ad for
that HBO show Silicon Valley. Then I realized they are serious...

[1] [http://www.piedpiper.com/](http://www.piedpiper.com/)

~~~
tejasm
Amazing ad by HBO for sure. The only other similar ad I remember was for The
Office. [http://www.dundermifflin.com/](http://www.dundermifflin.com/)

------
hc5
Using it with Google Glass:
[http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/...](http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/20000/3000/800/23889/23889.strip.gif)

~~~
taspeotis
October 12, 1994 [1]

[1]
[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-10-12/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-10-12/)

------
UVB-76
Alas, this is a fool's errand.

The keyboard is a broken interface, but this isn't an improvement.

Suppose I am the user identified in the video. I have a tablet—maybe not a
Microsoft Surface, but a tablet nonetheless—and I currently use a slimline
keyboard to type.

You hand me these. First thoughts: what are they? What do I do with them?
Great products are those that someone can be presented with for the first
time, and in a matter of seconds figure out what it does, how to use it, etc.
Think kids reacting to technology [1]

So for argument's sake I read the manual, or you give me a walkthrough. Great,
how do I start using them? Oh, they have to 'learn' my writing style? Is my
first impression going to be a string of largely inaccurate input?

How am I going to 'teach' this system? Through some proprietary software,
which I may have problems downloading, and which may not even work on my
device? How are people going to demonstrate these in stores; how am I going to
proselytize to my coworkers? "Just try these out; wait, no. Yeah, don't worry
about that, they have to learn your typing style. Yep, they'll do that for a
while... no, but they're really great. Honestly... honestly."

This is already sounding like a lot of effort, but you've assured me there's
gold at the end of this rainbow. Surely the cost-benefit analysis will check
out.

So I've got them working. Are they accurate enough? Let's assume they are.
This isn't too bad actually. I'm going to hop on Twitter and tell people all
about this. Hashtag AirTypeRocks! Hashtag... hashtag... where's my hash key
again? I can't seem to find it on this wooden bench.

Okay, that's a downstream problem. For now, I'm going to pack these up and
head home. But where do I put them? They're an awkward shape. They look pretty
easy to break.

What happens when I lose one of them? Is the entire system rendered useless?
They look expensive to replace.

Are these yet more devices I'm going to have to charge? I'm already fed up of
charging my laptop, phone, tablet, etc.

Are they going to protect the screen of my tablet device in transit? Looks
like the opposite. I think I'll hang on to the keyboard-cum-screen protector
for now...

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7EpEnglgk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7EpEnglgk)

~~~
delinka
Looks to me like this type of device is the beginning of disrupting typing.
Once you have a way to detect finger movement with something small,
lightweight, unobtrusive (I'm making assumptions about AirType based on my own
desires) and programmable, we can create the interfaces we want.

~~~
hrktb
Or is it ? At least this one seems to be fighting the last battle.

It targets people who can blind touch, which may not be a growing population
in 10 or 20 years. Computer will be more ubiquitous than now, but there will
be a whole generation that would be raised on touch devices first and be very
proficient with on screen keyboards or benefit from direct writing recognition
(these two are both more discoverable than this technology), or more minorly
speach recognition.

For a generation not trained on physical keyboards first, I'm not sure this
kind of alternative input method will be better or faster that what they were
already using as primary input device, and they'll want something wildly
better if they have to switch to something else. Like a full size physical
keyboard, if they're going to type for a long extent of time.

edit: spelling

------
jodrellblank
So it's a SenseBoard from 2001?

[http://www.keyglove.net/wp-
content/uploads/2010/10/senseboar...](http://www.keyglove.net/wp-
content/uploads/2010/10/senseboard.png)

------
dsl
I doubt the ability to get a functional product to market.

The "Team" section lists only 2 actual doers and multiple product people.
Never a good sign in a startup.

------
tlrobinson
If I'm following their logic correctly: Touchscreen keyboards are inferior to
real keyboards, so some tablet users buy add-on keyboards for their tablets.
These are also inferior to real keyboards. Therefore, AirType is better,
because it's different.

Seriously though, I don't see this catching on. Keyboard enthusiasts obsess
over the tactical feel of their mechanical keyboards for a reason.

------
bluthru
So it appears that you have to keep your fingers elevated off of the surface,
and then strike down similar to a touch screen?

The best part about a mechanical keyboard is that you can rest your hand on
the keys. I've actually never tried a MS Surface touch cover, but something
like that without actual segmented keys might be best. Sort of like a touch
cover and Fleksy hybrid.

------
timmins
The demo video shows a Surface tablet that has zero visual response to the
hardware keyboard and their demo product. Who thought this was a good idea?

------
donutdan4114
I wonder how accurate it will be.. For general typing, there is probably some
built-in autocorrect, but, if you wanted to code, I wonder how that would
work.. Exciting anyway.

------
thinkersilver
Accuracy aside. What do you you if you need to look at your keyboard to find
an unfamiliar symbol. I can touch-type fairly fast but my error rate goes up
dramatically when typing non-alphabet keys.

What would be neat is if you could bring up the tablet keyboard through a
gesture, like clapping your palms together, select the unfamiliar symbol,
gesture to remove the keyboard then continue.

Although I like the idea of something like this, I can't imagine myself using
it for a long period of time.

------
joeld42
Could this work as a piano keyboard? That would be way more useful for me
since I usually have a physical keyboard (laptop) but I can't really carry
around a midi one.

~~~
97s
I actually think this is pretty brilliant, have the hand parts hook up to some
ear buds and plug them into your ears, any place your at you can practice
piano.

~~~
notahacker
Piano hand movements would most likely also be easier for the software to
reliably track, and some people might like the gimmickry of "air keyboards"
for live performance

------
ethana
So the solution is to invent something worse than detachables and on-screen
keyboards?

Not saying AirType is bad...yet. But I didn't see it working either.

------
vanderZwan
There's nothing I can say about this that Bret Victor hasn't already said
better:

[http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)

TL;DR: Give me some tangibility in my interfaces! (You really should read that
rant though)

~~~
pestaa
This is always the first thing that pops into my mind when talking about touch
interfaces.

There is so much and so deep harm in taking away the tactile feedback.

------
seanewest
And then I go to shake somebodies hand/ wave to somebody / hold a sandwich and
I have this thing stuck to my hand.

Edit: Might be different if it wasn't so hard, big (across my whole hand), and
plasticy. Gloves and rings don't seem to cause much trouble during day to day
activities.

------
Angostura
Let's assume that this product works faultlessly.

What proportion of keyboard users are touch typists? I'm not.

------
shekhar101
Is it just me or the intro video wasn't really clear how it works. Am I going
to just move my hands on nothing and expect this thing to write? Can someone
clarify how this works?

------
lechevalierd3on
I've always wanted to try a laser keyboard like this one
[http://www.celluon.com/shop_epic.php](http://www.celluon.com/shop_epic.php)
but not to the point of buying one...

Seems to me like it is a more user friendly approach no physical feedback and
no visual sounds like AirType is a power user tool. And my Das keyboard lover
friends who have blank layout would hate the lack of physical feedback.

~~~
brimtown
I received one of these as a gift once. Played around with it for 2 minutes,
then never used it again.

The main issue I had with it was that you had to 'hunt and peck' in order for
it to register. Merely sliding your fingers around like on a standard keyboard
would just register errant keystrokes.

Also, resting your palms had the same keyboard-mashing effect. It was cool to
show off to others, but totally impractical for real use.

------
talles
I don't see myself ever replacing a real keyboard for this, at least not for
long typing sessions (being tactile is the most appreciated aspect of a
keyboard for me).

But there is absolutely a huge demand out there for this. Not to mention that
other applications for it may appear (other than just replacing traditional
QWERTY keyboards).

But in the end the question is the same: how good it is?

Anyone got a video showing it working (other than just the concept)?

------
cwilson
What problem does this solve exactly? I want to think this is really cool, but
I'm having trouble convincing myself why people would buy this.

~~~
immad
Ideally it would make writing on a tablet as good as writing on a normal
keyboard.

~~~
cwilson
So for this product to succeed we're also arguing that tablets can replace
laptops? I own both for totally different reasons, and I don't think that will
ever change.

Or this is just a "nice to have" accessory for tablets?

My point is this isn't really something the masses will adopt, and is instead
a very luxury item for wealthy nerds (myself included). Totally fine if that's
the case, I just want to understand the target market.

------
kabouseng
The biggest problem for the average user, he can't see the keys. So while
techies on this forum can pretty much type without looking at the keyboard,
your average user still types with only two fingers, looking at the keyboard.

Also it has the same drawback as tablet keyboards, i.e. no positive tactile
feedback when pressing a key.

But let's see, maybe this does replace keyboards altogether.

------
asadlionpk
I don't know... This won't be as accurate as we want it. No matter what they
use. I tried making a similar prototype using motion sensors, muscle sensors,
neural network. But the thing is, a keyboard is just alot of possibilities for
anything like that to predict. Plus, no feedback means our motion will be
whole lot different than on normal keyboard.

------
r00fus
I really hope they can handle chorded keystrokes if they want folks like
programmers to use it.

Also, while tablets are an obvious starting position, perhaps consoles would
be another good arena - having to lean over to type on that wireless keyboard
in order to chat or enter detailed text seems more intrusive than just typing
it out using AT.

------
etrautmann
I think there are some keys that I couldn't reliably hit without a quick
glance at what I'm aiming for. It's a reliable phenomenon that expert typists
can't tell you where many keys are, so I'm curious how I'd fare when I need to
hit the ^ or & symbols and can't look down.

~~~
logn
Add in some speech recognition and it would be an ideal system.

------
advertising
Cool and I would like to try it. But doubt I would sit down at a coffee shop
and put my bionic hands on in front of everyone.

I would have to be better than typing on a keyboard.

Video was weak. Right when they show the product it cuts out.

Would be good if you were able to touch your finger to the surface and it
becomes a trackpad as well.

------
kirillzubovsky
This keyboard will have the same problem that iPad/tablet keyboards have -
lack of a mechanical response, and without that, you'd find it just as painful
to use AirType as you would a tablet. IMO, sure, but you wait for it ;)

------
dully
Isn't this basically like the Magic Cube laser keyboard?
[http://www.celluon.com/products.php](http://www.celluon.com/products.php)

------
archagon
I wonder if the same thing could be done with a Leap Motion controller? Seems
to be a more versatile solution.

------
ryanx435
meta: its interesting that all of the team members are described with a short
informal first name and a tagline while all the mentors are described with
full names only.

it certainly shows the disparity between the generations and their different
expectations in the business world.

------
seth1010
I'll believe it when I try it.

------
Houshalter
I wonder if you could do something similar with a regular camera watching your
fingers.

~~~
throwaw_10j2j90
I have done that using Kinect. It's difficult to achieve a high level of
accuracy, though.

------
totoroisalive
Showing a fake demo, it's not helping their landing page.

I would love to see the real product.

------
_random_
I personally like the tactile feeling so much that I bought a relatively
expensive mechanical cherry-switch keyboard. There is no way replacing that
feeling on your fingers.

------
881118
it is Senseboard from 2001 I think they are the same people reviving the old
product which somehow failed at that time.

------
fiatjaf
Maybe I can use this to code while driving!

------
ilaksh
Looks great. Need to see a real demo.

------
jamesbpollack
i would pay so much money to be able to walk around and code

~~~
seanewest
Would you buy an app that allows you to program on your phone (that is
sensitive to the limitations of the on-screen keyboard)?

------
3rd3
Ben’s photo is 1.2MB in size.

~~~
3rd3
They fixed it. You are welcome.

------
kingnight
The terrific song in the video is Boe Zaah by Mac Demarco.

It's unfortunate to see it in a product video unattributed (or at all — though
I know his music is licensed elsewhere).

~~~
d23
Do you know that they didn't buy the rights?

~~~
kingnight
No, good point. I'd edit my comment to just point out the artist, but cannot.

------
zz1
Wow, really exciting!

And I know I am ( __not __) being paranoid, but imagine how excited NSAs of
the world all will be! A new kind of keyboard, that has capabilities to
understand and predict what the user will write? This just looks like
something Facebook could also be interested into (if you think at their "I
keep what you wrote and deleted before even publishing" attitude).

This kind of tool __really __needs to be open source and open hardware.
Otherwise they better stay far away from me.

~~~
LeoPanthera
This kind of cynicism is getting tiring. Being cautious about your personal
information is good, but how exactly is this any worse than a bluetooth
keyboard? OS X and iOS already have predictive typing with regular keyboards.
There is no need for FUD.

~~~
dmn001
Predictive typing for single words is usually based on a locally stored
dictionary, and for sentences it can be done with a model like prediction by
partial matching. The device functionality is similar to a system used for
speech recognition, in that better accuracy would only be gained by sending
motion and text data to the cloud at the very least in the training stage and
then aggregate and analyse data using a prediction model.

However, no-one seems to care that most voice recognition tools like Siri
nowadays send and store data on servers, and nearly all those aren't OSS.

~~~
bsilvereagle
> However, no-one seems to care that most voice recognition tools like Siri
> nowadays send and store data on servers, and nearly all those aren't OSS.

I think one of the reasons Jasper [1] was so well received was that it was
offline.

[1] [http://jasperproject.github.io/](http://jasperproject.github.io/)

~~~
zz1
Thanks for pointing out Jasper: great!

