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Watch Synaptics' touch-sensitive space bar in action
Earlier today, Synaptics announced its SmartBar technology that adds a touch input area -- enabled by a sub-0.2mm-thick PET film -- onto the space bar, which then lets you perform certain tasks without having to touch the mouse or trackpad. We went over to the company's show room at Computex to check this out, and we came away impressed. In the first demo, we looked at how you can quickly select text while typing by simply swiping to the left on the space bar. We were then shown how you can scroll with two fingers on the space bar: hold down one on the left and swipe with another on the right for vertical scrolling, and vice versa for horizontal scrolling. This will take some getting used to, obviously. You can also zoom in and out by swiping both fingers inwards or outwards -- a bit like pinch-to-zoom but on a space bar.
Synaptics' touch-sensitive space bar speeds up your writing
Your smartphone's keyboard has loads of shortcuts that help you write faster, but the keyboard on your big, brawny PC doesn't. Seems illogical, doesn't it? Synaptics doesn't think it makes sense, either. The input firm is launching SmartBar, a technology that turns your keyboard's space bar into a touch-sensitive surface for gesture controls. You can swipe your thumb to select text, pinch to zoom in and program five "logical buttons" that perform macros, such as formatting text or building units in a favorite real-time strategy game. This might only save you a couple of seconds reaching for your mouse, but Synaptics is betting that those little time savings will add up.
SwiftKey 3.0.1 brings new themes, languages and bug fixes
Rejoice, Android keyboard enthusiasts! SwiftKey announced today that it's pushing out an update to its popular virtual keyboard that brings new themes, languages and bug fixes. Version 3.0.1 incorporates two new summer themes -- Sky blue and Fuchsia -- and bumps the language count to 44 with the addition of Malay and Urdu. The keyboard now also supports continuous dictation with Google voice typing on Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean. Most important, however, are a plethora of tweaks, performance improvements and bug fixes designed to further improve the SwiftKey user experience. We've been using the update for a few hours now on AT&T's red Galaxy S III and it definitely makes our favorite Android virtual keyboard even better. Hit the break for screenshots of the new themes plus the full PR.
SwiftKey 3 Beta launches, no space bar required (video)
Just when we thought our favorite Android virtual keyboard couldn't get much better, TouchType decided to prove us wrong by launching SwiftKey 3 Beta. If you're one of the product's 30,000+ VIP users, you'll want to get your hands on the company's newest creation right now, for free. What's new? The space bar is no longer required, for one -- Smart Space detects and corrects "miss-typed or omitted spaces across whole phrases." Paradoxically, that same space bar is now wider, just in case you're feeling nostalgic. Smart punctuation further enhances the UI, with language-specific improvements in tow. In fact, SwiftKey 3 offers support for seven new languages -- Korean, Estonian, Farsi, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian and Serbian (for a total of 42). Finally, you'll find two lovely new themes, Cobalt and the Ice Cream Sandwich-inspired Holo. We've been playing with TouchType's latest and greatest for a few hours now on both our HTC One X and our Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 and we've stopped using the space bar completely. Did you notice? Wedidn'tthinkso. Check out the gallery of screenshots below, hit the break for a demo video and the full PR, then follow the More Coverage link to sign up as a VIP.
Keybindings and how to change them
Xella has a great post over at WoW LJ about keybindings, and it got me thinking. I play with what I thought was the "standard" way -- with the left hand sitting on the home fingers of Shift, A, W, D, and the spacebar, and then jumping up to the 1-6 (or further down the number line if necessary, though truth be told, I usually mouse-click those when I have the time to do so) to hit various abilities. But xella does it very differently -- she maps her fingers to the top abilities keys, using only her ring finger for movement. I would probably never have come up with that on my own (my habits come directly from FPS games, where the 1-6 keys are mostly for weapon switching, something you don't do quite as often as casting abilities), but it does make a lot of sense, even if xella says her ring finger, with all of those movement motions, is getting somewhat worn out.And then she hits on something else I've been dealing with lately, too: changing what you've got. Setting up your keybinds is one thing, but actually changing them can be tougher.
