Photonic keyboard
Had the weirdest dream,
felt like I was living some part of a future life.
I was using a flat screened Mac with what I can only describe as a "Photonic key board "
Two tiny bases left and right emitting a laserbeam that suspended a holographic keyboard before my eyes.
My fingers just tapped through the relevant " Key " and the letter was typed.
I can only assume the bases provided the trig to calculate the key placements & that my fingers actually thus established the base angle & distance.
No I don't do Drugs. But I sure would love one.
felt like I was living some part of a future life.
I was using a flat screened Mac with what I can only describe as a "Photonic key board "
Two tiny bases left and right emitting a laserbeam that suspended a holographic keyboard before my eyes.
My fingers just tapped through the relevant " Key " and the letter was typed.
I can only assume the bases provided the trig to calculate the key placements & that my fingers actually thus established the base angle & distance.
No I don't do Drugs. But I sure would love one.
Comments
Perhaps a device underneath the hologram could track your fingers when they come within range, like those seeing-eye things they make for garage doors.
I want one too!
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...ews.technology
Thanx for the link.
I had a look. Not quite what I saw in my mind's eye. The mac version was definitely cooler & multicolored.
I hope Apple has researchers perusing these pages for little cutting edge ideas like this one.
I don't normally remember my dreams, but this one really felt like sometime in the very near future. I could even remember the glowing " Apple -command " key.
As for how to do's well Rock concerts have been using this sort of technology to project quasi-Holographic images into the air. Aka Pink Floyd.
Elevators, doors & gates open on a beam being interupted, so I can guess that the basics would be technologically feasable & within range
What you describe exists in prototype form and is on at 1 least roadmap of which I am aware. It is based on an Israeli technology. It works beautifully and in the incarnation of which I am aware is destined for a mobile phone ... a little way off. To be clear, I am aware of this for a fact.
There are two projections; one is the keyboard and one is the sensor. The former exists just so you know where you are typing ... you can turn it off and type into space.
Originally posted by aquafire
As for how to do's well Rock concerts have been using this sort of technology to project quasi-Holographic images into the air. Aka Pink Floyd.
Elevators, doors & gates open on a beam being interupted, so I can guess that the basics would be technologically feasable & within range
Aren't those light shows just lasors projected onto fog?
What if someone projected that virtual keyboard linked above onto fog? That'd be cool but no reason to leave a fog machine running constantly on your desktop.
Cool idea by the way aquafire. It reminds me of a dream I had about six years ago about projected light beams used to make up a 2D image in an empty frame.
I say go for the dreams.
In relation to your dream idea its not that far off base.
I saw an article recently in New Scientist where some US based " Skunk-Works " or some such research group were examining an ultimate "camoflage " that worked along the same principals that Chameleons & squid use to change their skin color.
In both cases (as with other critters) electric impulses change the tonal value of the skin so that it matches the suroundings perfectly.
In relation to your dream idea, it is feasable to produce an organic "Paint " that responds to the varying light frequencies projected at the surface.
Only problem is the "Lagtime " between color reactions.
Organic is always going to be slower than purely inorganic chemical based processes.
Incidently, Kodak last week revealed an Organic based photo-luminecent screen for use with their Digital cameras.
Apparently they patented this technology as far back as the mid 1980"s ! Wow !
So dream on & who says the universe isn't wierd ?
Yeah, I understand where your coming from, but then again I won't miss the " dead " keys.
or the cookie crumb collection.
nor the strange greasy spots, dandruff piles, toe-nail clippings, mice droppings. etc.
But I might miss using my key-board for swatting all those goddam flying cockroaches and hitting my strumming it like an air guitar Yea !
I got myself the iGesture keyboard for $249, and I have to say that the keyboard was crap and flimsey. The kind you can pick up at a computer fair for $5.
The igesture pad tho is cool. It took me a few days to get used to the 'typing' without actually pressing the keys - and to master some of the more subtle gestures. Not sure if I could get used to a whole keybard - as Placebo said, I too like the feedback when I type and only really use the pad for the gestures. ( I ripped it off the keyboard, and it sits in the desk between my mouse and keyboard. I still need the mouse for more precise mouse work.)
http://www.opera.com/features/mouse/
Originally posted by aquafire
In relation to your dream idea its not that far off base.
I saw an article recently in New Scientist where some US based " Skunk-Works " or some such research group were examining an ultimate "camoflage " that worked along the same principals that Chameleons & squid use to change their skin color.
In both cases (as with other critters) electric impulses change the tonal value of the skin so that it matches the suroundings perfectly.
In relation to your dream idea, it is feasable to produce an organic "Paint " that responds to the varying light frequencies projected at the surface.
Only problem is the "Lagtime " between color reactions.
Organic is always going to be slower than purely inorganic chemical based processes.
yeah. I know about that. Its not the same thing as my idea though I had that idea about 12 years ago. I'll try to explain my idea more sometime when I have the time to spare.
Originally posted by aquafire
Had the weirdest dream,
felt like I was living some part of a future life.
I was using a flat screened Mac with what I can only describe as a "Photonic key board "
Two tiny bases left and right emitting a laserbeam that suspended a holographic keyboard before my eyes.
My fingers just tapped through the relevant " Key " and the letter was typed.
I can only assume the bases provided the trig to calculate the key placements & that my fingers actually thus established the base angle & distance.
No I don't do Drugs. But I sure would love one.
Wow, I mostly dream about sex and how I'd spend the money I won playing the lottery.
Hope you don't mind being ribbed.
But as a trained psychologist, I can tell you that people often dream of things they don't have in real life. A kind of "wish fulfillment " so regards Sex & Lottery I guess you need a good bang & a buck !
I could imagine having several virtual keyboards available to you at any time, specialized video-editing keyboards or web-surfing keyboards, and of course QWERTY and Dvorak key arrangements for when you need to write a long paper or something.
This could be one helluvan interface coup.
Wow it be a scoop to blow the doors of all the Pc weenies.
Steve Jobs stands at the podium before a ultra thin flat & transparent screen.
Pulls tow small poads the size of match boxes from his pocket. Sets them some 20 inches apart.
Tabing a touch sensitive switch on one of the small boxes starts the whole process going.
less than a second later, Light pours off the screen from its inbuilt organic light sensitive molecular polymer layer.
The crowd gasps as Steve starts typing commands into thin air.
The crowd laughs to see the image of Bill Gates back to front through the transparent screen.
Steve jokingly apologizes as he switches the screen to opaque mode.
The mobs descend the stairs as a roit breaks out in New York. Everyone tosses their Pc's out the Windows.
This is Liberation
Originally posted by wyntir
To me the greatest thing about a "projected" keyboard would be its configurability. I've always been annoyed at all these BS keys on my keyboard that I never use. (Caps lock? Control? Any of the six keys above the arrows, save forward delete? Fifteen damn F-keys that I have never touched?) It would be great to be able to design your own keyboard to suit your needs.
I could imagine having several virtual keyboards available to you at any time, specialized video-editing keyboards or web-surfing keyboards, and of course QWERTY and Dvorak key arrangements for when you need to write a long paper or something.
This could be one helluvan interface coup.
Well, that sound interesting, and I guess there will be a need for keyboards for the foreseeable future, but I wish that instead of this technology, someone could figure out a way to reliably use speech to control the computer. Give me a microphone and let me dictate the long paper without mistakes instead of typing it.