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[perkiset]

Check it @ Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/students-get-their-hands-on-microsofts-adaptive-keyboard-adapt/?icid=engadget-iphone-url



glass face keyboard, can adapt to whatever you code it to be. One student made it so that with one touch, all your apps show up instead of the keyboard. This leads to a very exciting notion: a real touch interface computer. There are computers with touch screens and they are meh. Who wants to use an OS that is optimized for a mouse with your finger? It's a PIA on the 'pad, but we endure it because it's only a part time thing. I don't want my monitors close enough to my face so that it's actually comfortable to touch them. Additionally, when I'm working I don't want to have to take my hands from the keyboard to touch the screen.

With this, I think they have a real idea about how to bring touch into the equation. They (M$) could leverage this BIG TIME into the OSX world, as well as using it as a springboard to update their clunky interface. I'd have one, and hopefully the API as quickly as they could ship them out.

"Microsoft has no plans for productizing this prototype."  Yeah man. Spend your time on shitball phones and trying to play in the tablet space. Why is it that hairbrained schemes like redoing the Office interface or the "Pink" phone not only gain traction, but get deployed when HOT stuff like this gets ignored?

Bah.

[vsloathe]

With how expensive the Optimus keyboard is, it's probably price keeping this from the market.

[perkiset]

Hmmm. I was thinking that the Optimus was a mess of hardware, software and moving parts which was why it's so expensive.

But I wonder just how expensive the touch screen glass for such a thing would be... essentially the hardware of an iPad except a different geometry with no other guts save USB. Some reports say that the iPad screen weighs in at about USD$80. Even tripled then bumped for a handsome profit and you could still be under $500 - which, for what it does would be a great deal IMO. But perhaps you are right and people are just not ready to spend that on their input device.

But oooh can you imagine. Touch a "button" and it converts to your music player. Touch a button and the keyboard becomes a coder-board with macros, advanced chording techniques and access to resources. Just sweetness. Actually, the real way to think of this is a weird-shaped touchmonitor that can pop up a keyboard. APPLE ARE YOU LISTENING?

[perkiset]

Hmmm... I wonder if one of the touch monitors for Windows could be supported in OSX. If so, I could call the Accessibility keyboard up as my interface and put other controls such as iTunes and such on the monitor. I'm going to have to ruminate on that one. I'd still need an outboard trackpad for the mouse when I was talking to something other than the keyboard monitor, but I am suddenly quite intrigued...

[perkiset]

So I made a few calls because I am very interested. Keytec has a reasonable offering for a 19" touch widescreen for $535. Trolltech has a very different approach - you send them a Mac cinema display or iMac and they replace the monitor with a touchscreen capable one - my 20" monitor would be $899. I'd modify the back or build a VESA adapter that would hold the monitor in the proper position on my desk to make it like SuperKeyboard.

It all sounded pretty good until we started talking about multitouch. Ordinarily this would not affect me because I can use the trackpad to do such things. But here's a real problem: shift+key, ctrl+key, alt+key, shift+ctrl+alt+key ... typing would be rather hindered by the lack of a convenient shift key.



And here it was looking so good. Thoughts? How could I get around the multi-key difficulty?

[nop_90]

My internet antenna flew down during typhoon so my internet sucks crap.
I am patching thru my htc desire. Basically unlimited internet prepaid for $6.50 for 7 days.
Plus u can make it into a hot spot.

To answer your question perks, why can not M$ get into "cool things".
Just finished a really good book called "Positioning".
It answers the question bang on.

Basically best example is something like "Western Union".
They saw themselves as a "Telegraph company" instead of a communications company.
So when things like phones come along, instead of maybe looking into that area, they view it as competition and try and fight it.
In the short term this makes perfect sense, if you view perspective from manager inside the company.
If WU would open a "phone division", then the manager in charge of telegraph division his bottom line would drop.
So it would be in his best interest to shit can "phone division", they are just a passing fad etc.
By the time phones take over, that manager is long gone collecting his pension.

"Price" is never an issue. Just an excuse. Simple word "Mass production".
Aluminum used to be more expensive then gold to produce.
Some bright guy was still figuring out how to make it into airplanes,cars and all sorts of cool shit.