Techno Babble

A project to explore Adaptive Hardware and Context Aware Interfaces is detailed by the Microsoft Applied Sciences Group at

http://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/content/projects/AdaptiveHardware.aspx

The article describes the history of the project from the initial notes, through various different prototypes to a device which was made available to students participating in the 2010 Student Innovation contest at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) in October 2010.

http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2010/

For the contest, Microsoft provided a number of experimental Adaptive Keyboards for students to demonstrate how the combination of display and input capabilities in a keyboard could enable users to be more productive.

The keys can display different legends and be dynamically remapped as required, for example, to display command icons rather than a character set. In addition, there is a touch sensitive display window at the top of the keyboard.

The task for students was to develop innovative applications and experiences for the keyboard

Winners of the contest are detailed at

http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2010/Student_Contest.html

and a video made by Channel 9  shows the entries

Part 1 of 2 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvepWDFBHow )

Part 2 of 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYX3d5L5F0Q)

NOTE: The Adaptive Keyboard is a research prototype not an actual product and was only made available to students participating in the UIST contest.

Do you want to turn your iPad into a laptop ?

I’m not sure why you would want to but you can – with the iBluek Bluetooth Keyboard from Dexim.

The keyboard is made of premium leather for durability and superior protection.The sleek ABS keys turn the iPad and keyboard into one seamless unit.

http://www.dexim.net/us/products/Home-Office/DXA010.html

Introduced at the recent CES 2011

One problem with touch interfaces is the way that a users fingers hide (or occlude) the target point at the critical moment just before touching the screen. Also, the touch area of the finger is  much larger than a pixel on the display.

Lucid Touch is a project from Microsoft Research which tries to eliminate occlusion problems by placing a multi-touch panel at the rear of a mobile device. I wrote about this last year

http://www.kf12.com/blogs/techno/2008/01/lucid-touch/

and the original details are available at Microsoft Research

http://research.microsoft.com/users/baudisch/projects/lucidtouch/index.html

In addition, Apple filed a patent application (Jan 2007) for a handheld device (or iPod) that displays its output on a small front-side display screen but receives input through a larger touch- and force-sensitive interface on the rear of the device. Read more details at Apple Insider.

The Grippity Keyboard is a concept for a handheld wireless device, featuring a full qwerty keyboard where you type using keys on the rear of the device. It also incorporates an orientation sensor that is used to effectively double the number of available entry keys.

Grippity Keyboard