DX1: "The keys can be placed just about anywhere on the board you want them. There are no grids, hot zones, or marks of any kind that restrict where you place the keys, nor how far apart they are. The radio frequency system it uses operates at 13.56 MHz, and each of the individual keys is powered through inductive coupling. That means that you can actually hold the keys a very small distance off the surface of the board and they will still function."
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yeah, had a look at that from slashdot....looks very nice. You almost expect it to come with a pen tho...would be a nice extra.
My, but that's a neat use of RFID. It's about time someone come up with nice practical uses for the technology, after giving up on the idea of shooting Verichips into people. That just isn't gonna fly.
Now, if only they included a fairly long range RFID reader with direction finding abilities so you can find the missing keys after dropping that thing to the floor and having them scatter...
In a word : hottt
I think the question is: Why?
Because it allows people to have a games layout that suits them...so id they have big hands they can spread the keys out a bit more etc. its all about making it nicer to work on. Also, i guess it could help against RSI.
Ah. I can see how it would work well for gaming.
It would be great for people researching keyboard layouts, hoping to find the next Dvorak.
I think it would have to be more than the next Dvorak. There aren't many of us using it.
Dvorak may have researched designs for two-hand, left-hand-only, and right-hand-only, but who's going to research keyboard designs for people missing individual fingers? The flexibility of this one means every niche can be filled, including niches of one.
I type with two fingers at approximately the same speed that the above-average typist types with -- somehow I never ended up learning the proper way to type because my ass backwards way seems to suit me. I know it's incredibly retarded, but so am I (apparently).
Throw me on any "natural" keyboard, and I'm totally fucked, though. Those things are the devil. Also, can we get some fucking consensus as to the location of the backslash you keyboard manufacturing fucks?
I don't use two fingers, I use all ten, but also in a completely ad hoc way, and equally fast. Probably because I was using a keyboard years before I was ever taught "the right way" to type. Those ergonomic kb's are indeed awful. I've never had any kind of RSI due to keyboarding or mousing.
The backslash belongs to the left of the single-key width backspace, above my doublt height Enter key. Everyone else is wrong.
Heresy! Double-width backspace is correct! ;)
Also: Who actually uses "Insert" for overwriting text? Man is that annoying. I'm about ready to epoxy that damn key so it won't go down.
For me, insert is primarily combined with Ctrl and Shift to get copy/paste functionality when Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V mean something else. Overwrite sucks unless it's vi-style
I'm missing my right index finger, qwerty is fine for me.
Qwerty is functional for the overwhelming majority, myself included. That, to me, is scarcely an endorsement. It's an indication of the awesome power of humans to adapt.
Adapt? Or just realise that the only alternatives were too horrible to imagine?
Yea, I saw this at the Game Developer Conference. Seems pretty cool, but it would be really nice to be able to do it in a third dimension to make it a bit more ergonomic.
Hmmm... how far off the surface do the keys work? Is silly putty the answer?