
A keyboard that rises up from flat touch screens - sgrove
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57569078-94/a-keyboard-that-rises-up-from-flat-touch-screens/
======
gdulli
I was just thinking the other day about how the last time I was ever happy
composing text on a phone was when I had a Treo.

I didn't do it consciously, but ever since Apple introduced the toushcreen
keyboard and it became the standard I've changed my mobile usage pattern from
primarily producing (composing text) to consuming (reading and playing games.)
The novelty of playing games on my phone wore off quickly, but the loss of
productivity has been permanent. For anything that isn't passive, the
smartphone is more of a chore to use than it used to be. So I hope this works
out.

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kordless
Swipe typing on Android rules.

~~~
lelandbatey
I really don't get how it's so awesome. I have SwiftKey on my android phone
and it's never been faster for me to swipe Type vs just tape type with my
phone. The predictions are some much easier and cause much less friction than
trying to swipe everywhere. Can someone who really loves swipe keyboard
explain?

~~~
rcthompson
SwiftKey is not Swype. I've tried SwiftKey, and whatever algorithm they use to
figure out what word you were trying to swipe is terrible. With SwiftKey's
swipe typing, certain words are simply impossible to type because there are
other more common words along their path. In contrast, with Swype, I can
consistently type any word I want to, and do so faster then with tapping each
letter individually. Furthermore, since I just have to swipe my finger _past_
each letter, swiping requires less precision than tapping, which requires me
to hit the letter exactly.

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randomdrake
CNET actually covered this a few years[1] ago when the tech was first being
debuted. I remember reading about it because of the mention of the NSF. In
that story, they shared the link to the National Science Foundation's grant
page[2] for this project. From there, it appears a team of 3 were awarded
$149,354.00.

I think it's great to see that Kickstarters and VC funding aren't the only
ways to get some funding to get good, technical ideas of the ground.

[1] - [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20072117-1/tactus-
touch-...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20072117-1/tactus-touch-screen-
sprouts-keys-and-buttons/)

[2] -
[http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1047485](http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1047485)

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belluchan
All the cnet author needed was to add a gif or a super short video showing the
effect. They did not need to have some long video with voice over with stock
footage of people typing for half the video.

~~~
wmeredith
I was also struck by the hokiness of the video. It looked like something I'd
see on my local news.

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apendleton
A couple of things that aren't clear: firstly, does the manufacturer have to
commit to certain button combinations at manufacture time, or is it runtime-
configurable (in other words, can a user install a different keyboard with
different button locations and still use it)? Second, is the user still
triggering the keypress event just by touching, or is it actual depression of
the button that does it?

~~~
mgkimsal
no idea but...

i could see another type of event being needed - keyTouch and keyPress ???

~~~
tobr
Touch in this case is rather like hover though.

Lack of hover is one of the trickiest things in designing for touch screens
right now. There's no good way to tell the user a bit more about what's going
to happen, until they commit to a touch.

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alexpw
Article published on February 13, 2013 6:24 AM PST.

"Tactus says it wants to be in production by the end of 2013 or beginning of
2014."

I wonder if there is more recent news on this.

~~~
jgh
According to [http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2014/1/14/how-tactus-
wi...](http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2014/1/14/how-tactus-will-bring-
physical-keys-to-more-than-your-touchscreen.aspx) they're working with
manufacturers now and it we'll start seeing them "soon"

~~~
kunai
[http://xkcd.com/678/](http://xkcd.com/678/)

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waylandsmithers
If this actually works well, this could definitely fall into "just shut up and
take my money" territory for me. I still miss the physical keys my old
blackberry had.

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Pxtl
This would also be great for gaming, since you could use this to provide a
d-pad and tactile buttons.

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descentintomael
This is great for people with mental health issues like OCD. My fiancée (who
has OCD) was forced to finally upgrade to a touchscreen smartphone, but I
still had to get him a keyboard case so that he would have physical keys to
press. Trying to type on a virtual keyboard drives him mad.

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ommunist
I have read about its prototype couple of years ago. IMHO, clever and cool,
but really useless. Ergonomically it is much better to use separate keyboard
and separate screen. Think of it as in UNIX philosophy. Screens are for
staring, keys are for typing.

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melloclello
I always mind of expected that someday we'd come up with something more
sensible than a miniature Qwerty keyboard for text input on a phone. Something
not unlike Swype (or any number of the other alternative keyboards out there)
but with an interface which does away with the keyboard metaphor (note that
Swype is the only one so far to catch on in any way).

(Also note that voice recognition doesn't count, as to compete with a keyboard
your input mechanism has to be discreet)

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chenster
It's also featured in this year's CES 2014
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJYyy1u1xmQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJYyy1u1xmQ)

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blueskin_
Looks better than a touchscreen, but still not even close to a real keyboard.
On the other hand, mobile devices are rarely if ever used for more than 140
chars at a time, I guess.

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aaronem
Oddly enough, this technology was foreseen in a novel, _Free Radical_ [1],
which some random fellow on the Internet wrote on the basis of the story from
the game System Shock. Quite a good novel, actually, and especially so for
being something you just randomly trip over on the web; I recommend it.

[1] [http://www.shamusyoung.com/shocked/](http://www.shamusyoung.com/shocked/)

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chrisfarms
I'm going to guess that the "pump" is probably piezoelectric? ...but however
the pressure is created I suspect it will have a significant effect on battery
life while the keyboard is active, which is going to make adoption difficult.
I'd always take charge over bumpy keys.

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jader201
A bit off topic, but I don't frequent CNET much, and was pleasantly surprised
to see Sumi Das in the video and as the author of the article.

She was a correspondent on ZDTV/TechTV, which I watched constantly in its day.
It may be the first time I've run across something of hers since then.

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chiph
They've probably user-tested this, but would you want bubbles, or ridges that
appear around & outline the buttons that would guide your fingertip?

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math0ne
For a company named tactus it doesn't seem very tactile, if there's no click I
don't see the point.

~~~
prawn
Also, I'm not sure if there'd be as much benefit when pecking with thumbs (SMS
style), typing while holding the device, and that's how they seemed to
demonstrate it.

If I'm looking to type more than a sentence on a touchscreen, it will
generally be on a tablet and with it sitting on a table/lap. And even then, I
could get away with something like home keys to stay centred on rather than a
raised impression of every key.

I'd like to think that future input in these situations will come from
something other than an on-screen keyboard that takes up screen real estate.

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ibizaman
This will be really neat!

