Friday, July 18, 2003
An Itsy-Bitsy Keyboard....
Posted by Crystal Eitle in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 12:00 PM
An anonymous PPCT reader pointed us to www.Unitap.net to see what could be the world's smallest (practical) keyboard. A cool thing about this keyboard is that it uses existing technology for its hardware and so, theoretically, could be very cheaply produced. What's unique about it is the layout of the buttons, which allows for a very great "density" of symbols; i.e., the ability to cram a full alphanumeric keyboard into a very small space.
"Our patent pending technology UniTap combines advantages of miniature and passive chording keyboards. The main idea is based on interpreting activation of several switches as a meaningful function; however, unlike common practice of other solutions, this does not prevent from having uniform legend symbols placements. Such approach allows for preserving ergonomics of full-size key caps, while increasing functional elements density from 8 to 16 times comparing to the regular computer keyboards."
Huh??? It took me a while to parse that, and unfortunately the whole "how it works" section is written in this kind of patent-ese. Here's how it works in plain English. The letters and numbers are laid out in a grid such that each character is surrounded by four pin-like buttons. The keyboard works by chording; if you want to press "D," for example, there is no "D" button per se. Instead, you tap where the "D" is and your finger will hit the four surrounding pins. The keyboard registers the combination of these four pins as a "D." The letter "A" has it's own combination of four pins; however, it happens to share two pins with the letter "D." It's this sharing of pins that allows for so many characters to be in so small a space; each character has its own unique combination.
There's a demo on their site and it seems like a pretty intuitive, easy-to-use keyboard. There's an alphabetical layout and a modified QWERTY layout. The QWERTY layout looks like it would actually be easier to use than the alphabetical one. The Unitap site touts potential uses with a variety of small devices, including cell phones and PDAs, however, it doesn't specify connection options. I'm thinking a Bluetooth connection would be ideal, with an infrared option for those of us with older PDAs. Or perhaps this unique layout could be a good solution for built-in keyboards, enabling them to be a lot smaller than they currently are but still functional for those PDA users who don't have tiny fingers.
"Our patent pending technology UniTap combines advantages of miniature and passive chording keyboards. The main idea is based on interpreting activation of several switches as a meaningful function; however, unlike common practice of other solutions, this does not prevent from having uniform legend symbols placements. Such approach allows for preserving ergonomics of full-size key caps, while increasing functional elements density from 8 to 16 times comparing to the regular computer keyboards."
Huh??? It took me a while to parse that, and unfortunately the whole "how it works" section is written in this kind of patent-ese. Here's how it works in plain English. The letters and numbers are laid out in a grid such that each character is surrounded by four pin-like buttons. The keyboard works by chording; if you want to press "D," for example, there is no "D" button per se. Instead, you tap where the "D" is and your finger will hit the four surrounding pins. The keyboard registers the combination of these four pins as a "D." The letter "A" has it's own combination of four pins; however, it happens to share two pins with the letter "D." It's this sharing of pins that allows for so many characters to be in so small a space; each character has its own unique combination.
There's a demo on their site and it seems like a pretty intuitive, easy-to-use keyboard. There's an alphabetical layout and a modified QWERTY layout. The QWERTY layout looks like it would actually be easier to use than the alphabetical one. The Unitap site touts potential uses with a variety of small devices, including cell phones and PDAs, however, it doesn't specify connection options. I'm thinking a Bluetooth connection would be ideal, with an infrared option for those of us with older PDAs. Or perhaps this unique layout could be a good solution for built-in keyboards, enabling them to be a lot smaller than they currently are but still functional for those PDA users who don't have tiny fingers.
