Will touch screens kill the keyboard?

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webwit
Wild Duck

24 Feb 2011, 01:43

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... e_keyboard_
Thanks to a handful of emerging technologies, virtual touch-screen keyboards are getting closer to the feel of real electromechanical keyboards. Enhancements such as tactile feedback and surfaces that change to mimic physical keys could eventually redefine the virtual keyboard experience for millions of users of devices ranging from smartphones to tablets and touch-screen PCs.
The comments are interesting, most people don't see it happen.

Except me and the guy following my post, who has deep insight imo.
webwit wrote:I believe haptic screens will eventually take over. We already are typing on vastly inferior rubber dome keyboards, and even the famous IBM Model M was a cost saving exercise. Because people don't buy $500 keyboards. And most of the people who are against it or would always prefer a keyboard, are irrelevant in a way concerning the eventual outcome. Don't be offended, I am one of them. But it is about the new generation, the generation which grows up using smart phones and tablets. Who message each other at high school etc. They will prefer a haptic touch screen experience over the weird huge input machines "old people" use.
Gerard J. Cerchio wrote:My first computer was analog, purchased from a 1959 comic book. My second computer was a 3 bit digital mechanical kit. I was the first on my block with a home PDP 11/23 in the 1970's.

I am a member of first crop of computer users who are materialists. We created the gateway to the virtual world. TNG are virtual. More eastern, the tango with cyberspace has become a kata. Precision of movement during self expression is becoming a given. TNG is careful of the any word placed in the cyber realm by the time they reach 20.

The thought that they will require feedback for expression is as ludicrous as saying a person of my generation cannot speak without hearing one's own voice.

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sixty
Gasbag Guru

24 Feb 2011, 01:51

Yes probably. Not quite yet, but give it 15~20 years and a keyboard will be seen as typewriters are seen today. Obsolete, limited and just a relic of the past.

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keyboardlover

24 Feb 2011, 02:01

When the keyboard apocalypse happens, I, for one, will be glad I found GeekHack and DeskThority.

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Crazy9000

24 Feb 2011, 02:13

My grandfather still uses a typewriter, despite owning a perfectly good desktop and a laptop.

I personally think some sort of hand gesture system will take over before tactile touch screens do too much.

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webwit
Wild Duck

24 Feb 2011, 03:11

That's a good point. I bet when that happens, the kids of today will complain about the loss of tactility from the hard surface of their screens.

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microsoft windows

24 Feb 2011, 03:21

I don't think computer keyboards are going to be replaced any time soon. Keyboards are a) cheaper, and b)more reliable, and c) easier to use, compared with touch screens. There are several applications where fast, accurate computer input from a human is necessary (at a bank for example when they enter in all the checks you deposit, or at a checkout in a super market where they enter in item codes). While I think touch screens will take over with mobile phones and maybe netbooks, people like to have keyboards on their computers.

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Minskleip

24 Feb 2011, 10:51

I think people will use whatever is tossed at them.

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microsoft windows

24 Feb 2011, 21:58

I don't think so. People like keyboards where there's at least some soft of feedback from keys themselves. Plus, keyboards are cheaper than touch screens. That's a good reason for manufacturers to stick with them.

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Minskleip

25 Feb 2011, 00:22

Everyone has a limit ofcourse, but I don't give them the benefit of the doubt.

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webwit
Wild Duck

25 Feb 2011, 01:40


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microsoft windows

25 Feb 2011, 02:03

I can sum that article up in just a few sentences.

"Let's make computer input less efficient and more expensive. And we'll call it 'innovation'!"

Almost sounds like Apple.

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webwit
Wild Duck

25 Feb 2011, 02:23

Microsoft’s Kinect: The New Mouse?
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/2 ... new-mouse/

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microsoft windows

25 Feb 2011, 02:29

Something like that would be very useful when working with a computer on a projector.

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sixty
Gasbag Guru

25 Feb 2011, 12:32

webwit wrote:Microsoft’s Kinect: The New Mouse?
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/2 ... new-mouse/
Image

User avatar
keyboardlover

25 Feb 2011, 13:44

When I was in Chicago I played with that periodic table thing they did. It sucked. Many of the reactions were wrong (I happened to be there with a chemist) and you could only do very basic ones.

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sixty
Gasbag Guru

25 Feb 2011, 13:45

To be fair, that should be a software related problem though, and not related to the hardware?

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keyboardlover

25 Feb 2011, 13:48

Well the touchscreen was annoying and not sensitive enough. Sometimes dragging elements didn't even work.

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bugfix

25 Feb 2011, 14:00

Stop telling that horror story, you're frightening me ;(


Touch screens...yuck.

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microsoft windows

25 Feb 2011, 23:08

Touch screens get dirty too easily too. I know lots of people who don't care for fingerprints on their computer monitors. For some odd reason I just can't see them going touch-screen.

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webwit
Wild Duck

26 Feb 2011, 00:26

bugfix wrote:Stop telling that horror story, you're frightening me ;(


Touch screens...yuck.
One day, children will bump into old keyboards by accident and think it is pretty funny that in the old days people needed to input texts character by character by pressing the appropriate buttons.

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sixty
Gasbag Guru

26 Feb 2011, 00:36

webwit wrote: One day, children will bump into old keyboards by accident and think it is pretty funny that in the old days people needed to input texts character by character by pressing the appropriate buttons.
Fixed.

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Crazy9000

26 Feb 2011, 00:49

Keyboards are eventually doomed, the only question is when.

If tactile touchscreens that still display a keyboard on them take over, it would probably be by tablets getting more powerful and edging into the desktop market.

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microsoft windows

26 Feb 2011, 00:51

I do not see the keyboard being replaced any time soon.

Name one viable source of human computer input that's faster and more reliable than a keyboard. I can't.

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webwit
Wild Duck

26 Feb 2011, 02:28

Crazy9000 wrote:Keyboards are eventually doomed, the only question is when.

If tactile touchscreens that still display a keyboard on them take over, it would probably be by tablets getting more powerful and edging into the desktop market.
They will probably still have qwerty on them. Remember the fate of dvorak, remember the ergo keyboards of the nineties. Although Apple might pull something off in regards to change there. But it could all be like the ergo keyboard fashion. Lots of people with incredible ideas (and not so incredible ideas), but the ideas were irrelevant because they deviated from the standard.

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Crazy9000

26 Feb 2011, 02:32

Yeah they will be qwerty. People know how to type on that, anything else won't sell well.

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sixty
Gasbag Guru

27 Feb 2011, 02:19

I guess it will be a mix of standard QWERTY + something like T9 (that was it called when I last had a modern mobile phone) word database, very similar to the video webwit linked the other day. Eventually you will only end up having to type a few letters to write entire sentences.

Maybe once Google comes out with a product that guesses your words, shit like that will start happening. Google already offers an alternative input method editor for Chinese and Japanese, as far as I know it bases word guesses on your history of word selection and stuff like that.

http://www.google.com/ime/

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sixty
Gasbag Guru

28 Feb 2011, 03:13

Another thing to consider for the far future:

http://pinktentacle.com/2008/12/scienti ... rom-brain/

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microsoft windows

01 Mar 2011, 20:48

Now they're trying to connect our brains to computers? This is getting crazy!

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webwit
Wild Duck

02 Mar 2011, 14:21


ripster

02 Mar 2011, 17:19

Demonstrated at Cloud City.
Image

Does this mean we are all going to look like Bruce Willis in the future?

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