

The Minuum keyboard project: mobile keyboards reimagined - neonkiwi
http://www.indiegogo.com/minuum

======
raganwald
My (irrational) fear is that if this becomes a modest success, there will be
an aqui-hiring with much talk of it appearing in some upcoming edition of
Blackberry or Windows or whatever, and then nothing will be heard from them
again.

I think I need a little more sunshine, I must be low on Vitamin D.

~~~
firefoxman1
Once something like this becomes somewhat popular, even if it's killed by
acquisition, there will be clones popping up everywhere. I have Swype on my N9
(once considered state-of-the art input innovation) and I remember
anticipating it being on every smartphone. That didn't happen, but now you can
find dozens of clones in the Android market.

That's how technology moves. Ground-breaking technology becomes a commodity,
often laying the foundation for bigger innovations to take place.

~~~
ericabiz
"...but now you can find dozens of clones in the Android market."

Android 4.2.2 comes with a swipe keyboard by default. I have it on my Nexus 7
--I don't use it all the time, but it's useful when I am tired or I want to
type longer sentences.

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SEMW
Vaguely reminds me of Dave Mackay's (sadly now neglected) Dasher research
project[1], in that both can be used to enter text with input devices that
only have a single axis.

Dasher's seems like it fits better with continuous/'analogue' input methods,
though (it uses inherently continuous input, Minuum's just using the analogue
entry systems to simulate a single-row keyboard).

[1] home: <http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/>

gif showing the concept:
[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/images/largedasher...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/images/largedasher.gif)

play store: <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dasher.android>

~~~
mistercow
Dasher is really cool, but it suffers from two major problems:

1\. It's inherently slow. It just takes a long time to get from one letter to
the next, even when you're following along the expected path.

2\. It's exceptionally distracting to see alternate expected words pop up
along your way as you type, and I find it tends to derail my line of thought.

------
nsxwolf
Video: Loud music, lots of bass, dude is a quiet talker. I couldn't make out
everything he was saying.

Also: Touch typing on the full size iPad is extremely pleasant, and not bad on
the mini. Screen real estate is quickly reclaimed when you quit typing. It's
nice to have the same text input interface between your laptop and tablet.

~~~
leviathan
They did not mix the audio correctly. So many people miss out on mixing and
end up with all audio fighting to be heard. If you're not going to invest in a
sound engineer to mix your audio, at least learn about using a simple
compressor with side chain fed from the voice channel; it'll let people hear
what you're trying to say even with loud music in the background.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I really appreciate this comment.... I always wondered why it's so hard to
make music quiet behind voice tracks. But the words you used don't make any
sense to me and they're not that easy to Google. I did poke around a bit
though, and I think what you're talking about is referred to as "ducking"?

For those who want to apply this technique, it's built into GarageBand:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulfKubMdxPA>

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mike_esspe
I personally hate auto-correction, false corrections are highly annoying.

I use Messagease on my phone. It took me around a week to get to 30 WPM. With
two fingers it's possible to have around 50 WPM.

If you are looking for alternative keyboards, I recommend to try it:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.exideas.me...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.exideas.mekb)

~~~
flogic
Hmm decided to try MeassagEase out. It's a neat little thing. It's the first
touch keyboard that I would consider punching code in with. Most tablet
keyboards require too many button presses to get to the symbols and lack the
deliberate nature this seems to have. Would be nice if it had some predictive
text for when I'm just chatting but oh well.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
I tried it, too. It works great. Check the add-ons available, one appears to
be an English word prediction pack.

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jwarren
Looks interesting, but the music is mixed waaaay too high. I have to really
strain to hear his voice over the background music.

~~~
glhaynes
That does concern one when it's a video regarding a user interface project,
doesn't it? :)

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neonkiwi
I think the ideas quickly presented near the end of the video (~1:30 onwards)
are the most exciting part of this project. Right now, text entry using a
video game controller isn't exactly pleasant, and there are no shortage of use
cases for technologies like Google Glass where voice recognition wouldn't be
appropriate. This area is ripe for innovation; good luck Minuum!

~~~
DanBC
Alternate keyboards seem to die quickly.

Frogpad was a one handed keyboard.

The Twiddler was another which is probably a good fit for Google Glass.
(<http://youtu.be/gS8wGePlknM?t=1m19s>)
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzgJR8uAQvc>) -- but note that Twiddler2 was
about $200.

~~~
pyre
You forgot the AlphaGrip[1]!

[1] <http://www.alphagrips.com/>

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babesh
To summarize without having to watch 2 minutes of video: squash three rows of
querty keyboard onto one row and auto-correct.

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lukifer
I love the concept, especially if it degrades gracefully when one needs extra
precision (ie, when typing things like names that are guaranteed to fail
autocomplete). Looking forward to trying it out.

This is also yet another reason for bailing out of the iOS ecosystem. Hope
this finds its way to Ubuntu Mobile! :)

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peshkira
My problem with this (as a non-native english speaker) is that such solutions
often only support latin based languages and cyrillic is completely left out.
This will probably make it impossible to write, as auto-complete will not work
well.

Otherwise, it looks interesting, but I am a bit skeptical. good luck to the
dev team

~~~
DocG
Most non English languages don't work with these. My main language speaker
count is 1 miljon. I am not going to get auto-correction for this anywhere
soon(assuming it uses it). And my language happens to have some special
letters, so without changing keyboard, you can't just switch vocabulary(we
bypass it by using numbers, but this makes text non computer readable).

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bsimpson
I'm on my phone, so I can't watch the video.

My problem with keyboards that rely too heavily on autocomplete is that it
makes it too hard to use the web. Email addresses, domain names, and passwords
aren't going to be in the autocomplete dictionary.

~~~
grimman
Would <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzYCZm-ces0> be of any help to you? I'm
not familiar with how iPhones open various URLs, but I can open that in the
YouTube app on my Android.

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habosa
If the autocorrect is good this could actually be pretty neat. I found that
because you stuck with QWERTY I could "eye type" on it pretty easily, unlike
some other concept keyboards.

This should really be implemented as a feature in a full-size keyboard. Like a
button with a down arrow that causes the keyboard to shrink into "one
dimension" when you want the screen space. Or if 1D must be the default, it
should at least be able to expand to full size when a lot of typing is
necessary.

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mynegation
This project reminds me of Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" and ensemble coding.

I personally consider this book a must read for every aspiring entrepreneur in
software and hardware.

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_kst_
Is there a version of the video without the music? I can barely hear what he's
saying.

~~~
adamgravitis
Incidentally, I really love the soundtrack. Does anyone know if this is just
stock music from somewhere?

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desireco42
You guys should build it if you think it is worth building, why do you need
backing for software keyboard ?!

I am not backing this and it is getting ridiculous. And video, there should be
Bootstrap for Kickstarter videos, a template you can just add to.

I would be happy to try this out when it comes out. I expect it will not work
for me as I am bilingual and those keyboards only work well for english. But
good luck, don't spend all the money at one place.

~~~
webignition
_why do you need backing for software keyboard ?!_

It takes time to make software. Backing gives you the money to dedicate time.

~~~
axx
i can imagine it takes time to build something like this, but there are a lot
of people building cool stuff without the money (open source is all about it).

In my opinion there is no reason why they couldn't start with a first beta for
android (payed app) and interrate from there.

If more people like it, they'll buy it.

Kickstarter/etc. is just marketing, i hate the development of this "strategy"
for software.

~~~
bergie
Again, building software takes time and money. Much of open source has been
"subsidized" by people either working on getting a degree, or by their
employer when they build and release something that solves a problem for the
company.

Kickstarters and other similar crowdfunding platforms are a great way to gauge
interest in a concept before starting to build it. If thousands of people are
willing to pay for it before it exists, then even more are likely to pay for
the finished application.

------
Kartificial
Interesting approach, at first glance I was not really convinced, but seeing
the possible applications in wearable electronics, this might be the ideal
solution.

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bakirtzis
There is a layout on Greek phone keyboards (not smartphones) in which every
letter possibility is divided in 3 letter segments of the alphabet (i.e. one
segment is ABC (or ΑΒΓ) another DEF (ΔΕΖ) and so on and so forth). Normally,
you press the key as many times as the letter you wish to write (i.e. one
click for A, two for B, three for C) or in this different layout you click
once for a letter that exists in the word in the series that it is shown then
another series in which the next letter exists etc. The phone then creates a
word out of those possible letters and spits out the closest result, with no
fail.

For example, you want to write the word 'and', you press the sequence 'ABC',
then 'MNO' and lastly 'DEF'. Then it creates the word 'and'.

I haven't found something like that in American phones, albeit I use an iPhone
now. It's more intuitive than it sounds and it makes texting a lot faster.

If anybody can bring more input about this happening in English phone
keyboards is welcome to do so. (It also might have a name that I am not aware
of)

~~~
daxelrod
This sounds like <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text)> which was
quite popular in the US before smartphones took over.

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BrianEatWorld
I'm not convinced for smartphones, but the tail end of the video shows some
real promise. The watch and game controller in particular.

It is interesting that they are using QWERTY. Im curious if thats a decision
based on trying to gain acceptance. It seems that if you're looking to really
reinvent user input, theres likely a more ideal layout.

~~~
ricardobeat
I think the choice of QWERTY is purely for acceptance reasons. Everybody can
air-type on an imaginary keyboard, using a new layout would be a massive
barrier to entry.

------
Sephr
For the part with typing for your watch and glasses, I think MYO + ASETNIOP,
enabling typing on any surface (such as discreetly on your thighs) with zero
interface, will be much more practical.

~~~
jholman
I'm excited about MYO too, and thanks for bringing ASETNIOP to my attention.

But I think "practical" is the wrong word for the advantages of both of those
technologies (separately and also in combination). "Powerful" seems more to-
the-point.

Myo requires specialized hardware. ASETNIOP requires specialized training.
Minuum doesn't require the former (beyond an accelerometer), and almost none
of the latter.

I think Minuum would combine well with Myo.

Links for the curious+lazy:

<https://getmyo.com/>

<http://asetniop.com/>

~~~
asetniop
ASETNIOP's got a learning curve, but a MUCH higher ceiling. I'm seeing 37 wpm
quoted as the top speed for Minuum, whereas here's a demo of an _average_
speed of 65 wpm sustained over three minutes:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nygdYinzpmk>

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twodayslate
They should sell this on Cydia to replace the iOS default keyboard.

It looks pretty interesting but I do not really have a problem with the
default keyboard.

------
brianbreslin
Did swype ever get acquired? this looks interesting, and could be a useful
acquisition target for samsung/apple/google

~~~
co_pl_te
Swype was acquired by Nuance. Nuance has quite the portfolio for input entry
whether it be by speech or typing.

Reinventing text entry/editing is something I've always wanted to do/see done.
Wish there were more solutions that weren't based off of QWERTY, though. I
realize it's been the standard since the typewriter, but if we really want to
see huge gains in speed and efficiency, we should shift away from it.

~~~
cpeterso
I was always surprised that Apple did not acquire Swype. It is a fantastic
input method, the kind of "magic" people expect from Apple. Now that the
Google has implemented gesture typing for Android's stock keyboard, I assume
Swype must not have patents strong enough to block imitators. Maybe that's why
Swype was not acquired by Apple or Google.

------
jae-
Looks like it will be painful to get used to, but we said that about the
QWERTY keyboard and look where we are today.

~~~
ewolf
I don't even think so. It's just QWERTY without Y axis, after all. I guess
that you'll be accustomed to it after a couple of minutes of typing.

What's hard is adapting to entirely different layouts such as Dvorak (which,
by the way, could probably increase autocorrect accuracy greatly).

~~~
co_pl_te
This is likely true for those of us who have already become accustomed to
typing using QWERTY, but there are many who are just learning or have yet to
learn to type, most notably children.

If at some point an input method that is faster and more efficient than QWERTY
gains real traction and is taught or exposed to our youth, I'd expect a shift
away from what's become convention.

This is by no means something that will just happen overnight, but I'd be a
little saddened if in the last years of my life, QWERTY remains as the
dominant method of text input. It's certainly a good solution, but no where
near an optimal one.

~~~
ewolf
The "gaining real traction" part is exactly the issue. Of course, we'd all
love our governments to force everyone to learn Dvorak or something similar,
but usually, no authority worries about our keyboard layouts, and people just
use what others use.

------
johngalt
If you're interested in alternative keyboards, take a look at GKOS. It's a
thumb based chorded keyboard.

<http://gkos.com/gkos/index-gkos-com.html>

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rhapsodyv
I think the keys can be grouped in way that you rarely will need to press the
same key twice in a row. The typing speed could be increased and would be less
words options for each typed sequence. It's just a though...

~~~
ewolf
Sure, but that will require users to get used to a different layout. Dvorak
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard>) does this. It
isn't very popular though, as it's few people want to spend time relearning
how to touch type.

~~~
goldfeld
Comparing touch typing to touch keyboards is quite a stretch, pardon the pun.

~~~
ewolf
How is that? Somebody who doesn't know how to touch type is usually having a
pretty hard time locating the keys on a QWERTY keyboard. Tactile typing (I
just made that name up) doesn't require exact knowledge of the key placement
as you need it when touch typing, but you still need some kind of muscle
memory if you want to achieve a reasonable speed.

------
DanBC
This has some potentially amazing possibilities for accessible devices. I hope
they get some people with various limbs and digits missing for testing.

(The music drowns out the voice! That's a shame.)

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ivanb
Tests will show how correct it will be. May I suggest to also try swype with
this?

~~~
jtheory
I like swype, and the new swiftkey flow (basically swype + swiftkey), but even
with 2D querty it's frustrating how often either of those misinterprets what
I'm trying to enter.

If it got still less info -- particularly as this is being developed with far
fewer developer resources than Swype and SwiftKey have at their disposal... --
I don't have much hope for it.

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Shorel
I want this in Ubuntu phone.

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namuol
I think the most interesting use of this would be typing via eye-tracking.

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k4st
Off topic: This was filmed in the Bahen building at U of T! Go DGP!

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dools
Ugh, just give me back my candybar qwerty already!

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miguelrochefort
Yet, it's still in QWERTY.

~~~
cpeterso
That's the point. Users don't need to learn a new keyboard layout.

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Nightrider
If they could jimmy something up for the Windows phone, I'd be very happy. Its
a great idea and aesthetically it looks cool.

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drivebyacct2
>Fact

>People have difficulty typing on mobile devices. (Your experience may vary.)

Uh.

