Thursday, July 26, 2007

PDA Keyboard Idea

There are two common ways to input text to a PDA: using a stylus, and using a mini-keyboard.

The drawbacks of a stylus is that it is prone to mistakes, and takes just as long as writing by hand.
The drawbacks of a mini keyboard are that it is difficult to cram your fingers on the buttons, and you have to rest the PDA on a surface in order to type with both hands.

Yesterday I had a great idea. You simply put the keyboard on the back of the PDA, and touch type. I think the images do a better job than words of describing how it works.

4 fingers are on the back to type with, and the thumbs are free to use as pointing devices. The space bar would be in the top front. The keyboard and screen can then take up an entire side of the device, and you can hold it as you type.

The true hallmark of a good idea is that it's been done before. This idea is so good that in 2001, Xuan Ni of San Jose, California patented it. You can see it here, on Google Patents.

I have some ideas on why its never been popularized, but I don't know for sure.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

my theory on why its not popular: touch typing is a function of muscle memory, which is not scalable. Simply making a smaller keyboard wouldn't mean easy touch-typing for most people.

Learning to touch-type involve lots of non-touch-typing, which is nearly impossible when you CAN'T see the keyboard.

Also, computer (QWERTY) keyboards are pretty standardized in layout and size. This means you can learn to type on a different machine than you work on later. The variation in cellphones/PDAs etc makes this unlikely, especially if corporations would be forced to pay for a license for the keyboard technology.

Fish Goldstein said...

touch typing is a function of muscle memory, which is not scalable. Simply making a smaller keyboard wouldn't mean easy touch-typing for most people.

The keyboard I propose wouldn't be so much smaller than a regular keyboard.

Learning to touch-type involve lots of non-touch-typing, which is nearly impossible when you CAN'T see the keyboard.

Um... actually, I learned to type Dvorak
using a regular keyboard. As a result, I learned to touch-type dvorak in a couple months much better than I had in over 10 years of qwerty use. I did use an on-screen keyboard for the first week or so. I didn't type on it, but just used it for reference. After a week or so, it was unnecessary. An on-screen keyboard for reference wouldn't be any more cumbersome than the on-screen keyboard featured on the iPhone and other devices.


Also, computer (QWERTY) keyboards are pretty standardized in layout and size. This means you can learn to type on a different machine that you work on later.

The layout I propose would be equivalent to a qwerty keyboard to a touch-typer because the layout from the finger perspective would be the same. For example, the left pinky, ring, middle and index fingers would use the ASDF keys. I think the patent page specifies this in images.

The variation in cellphones/PDAs etc makes this unlikely, especially if corporations would be forced to pay for a license for the keyboard technology.

I had suspected that. However, with a basic idea like this one, normally a corporation can figure out some way to change it so they don't infringe on the other patent. But you could be right.

Anonymous said...

In that case, what is your non-popularization theory?

Fish Goldstein said...

The two ideas I had were licensing and learning curve. Both of those you mentioned. I think they are possibilities, but I'm not convinced.

Anonymous said...

http://funtasticus.com/20070817/top-10-most-weird-keyboards/

Fish Goldstein said...

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/noahpad-taiwans.html
Take a look.