Glass keyboard concept opts for cameras instead of keys
By Donald Melanson 
posted June 12th 2008 2:48PM
posted June 12th 2008 2:48PM
While we can't say it's our notion of an ideal keyboard, we've still got to admire designer Kong Fanwen's ability to throw any sense of practicality to the wind and ditch the whole idea of keys with his new "No-key Keyboard" concept. In the place of that tried and true typing mechanism, this keyboard would instead make use of a camera and the "latest motion capture technology" to watch your fingers' movement and capture all the right keystrokes (ideally). On the upside, that'd apparently make the keyboard fully waterproof, and it'd apparently come with some snazzy lighting options to help you find those non-existent keys in the dark.
[Via Pocket-lint]
[Via Pocket-lint]
What I fail to understand about these, and most "innovations" these days is how they improve upon the function of the object at hand. Sure it looks beautiful. But I can almost guarantee that if you pulled all the keys off there, made it recognize handwriting and have a bunch of larger areas which probably wouldn't need to be delineated to touch for F keys and other non typing keys, you would have
1: clear piece of glass
2: functional piece of equipment
3: an improvement on the way people interface with a computer, not a less efficient product
Handwriting is an improvement?
The picture "clearly" indicates that this concept "shatters" imagination.
Anyway, love to see them make this into production... I hope with some plastic material and not glass, although not sure of how well the camera can sense through plastics. Oh, and wireless please. Such a high-tech gadget shouldn't have cables attached.
For those of you who say there's no feedback - they could add in Samsung's touch response thing from their touch phones (even though I'm an iPhone user) that vibrates slightly during contact.
Hay, this is an old concept? I remember this in the movie "TRON" On his office desk , err top computer. it is the perfect setup for the CEO's that never do anything!
hey at lest it will be easy to clean if you have "sticky" keys
srry bout spellg. hd 2 txt. dsk 2 mssy & cnt fnd dmn keybd!!
Great, another window to clean. I don't do windows, hahah
I find it hard to see the comfort of these non-tactile keyboards unless they are able to provide some sort of feedback to your fingers as you type.
Yeah, bad idea. I don't know about everyone else, but i often get frustrated and throw my keyboard a lot. An unbreakable keyboard would be much better. nothing beats a good old fashion disposable beige keyboard. if you get pissed you can break it in half, and ladies and gentleman that is much more pleasing.
might be a problem for typists who often put their fingers on the home keys without even thinking....
Two words: Haptic Feedback
Does no one else see the star trek-like potential of this? You would not be restriced to the typical keyboard layout, and would be able to project an interface onto the glass (yes, I know that the layout will probably be printed on, but taking the technology a step further). It would make life much easier if you had the specific commands for the program that you are using, in place of, say, the F-keys.
Only loved by people that have never used a typewriter. I want tactile feedback from typing. Cool concept, just impractical IMHO.