Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 110 posts

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#101

Post by brokenmachine »

all2 wrote: post #5
jslezak wrote: post #3

Yes! I have been wanting this forever. Keys are in too predictable a position

There were, for awhile, some security systems had on-screen keyboards that would change layout on every key press.

My bank does this, you can see it at https://www.ing.com.au/securebanking/

It also takes ~5s to render the page on my PC, no idea WTF it's doing during that time, probably mining crypto.

Hmm actually, it doesn't rearrange on every digit, it's a static but random layout every time you go to that page.

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#102

Post by chatmasta »

qrobit wrote: post #18
stoneman24 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this is an attempt to stop the “clean key” problem. Security system keypads (especially outdoor ones) tend not to be cleaned, so as time passes, it is easy to spot the dirty keys. Dirty keys are not being pressed and are therefore not in the passcode. So look for the clean keys and try combinations from there. In a 4 digit (0-9) keypad, knowing the clean numbers drops the possible codes from 9999 to 24 (…

It would be 24 if all digits are distinct It actually drops from 10^4=10000 to 4^4=256 combinations

I encountered a case of this in college, where there were four clean digits - a tough task to be sure! But fortunately the digits happened to be the same set of digits that comprised the room number. It took two guesses, because there was a twist - the combination was the room number, backwards.

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#103

Post by tetrisgm »

shae wrote: post #96
tetrisgm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t, but the reason I like to explore absurd looking ideas is because of the serendipity that lateral thinking opens up. Thanks for exploring that! What would be a cool use case for thumb controls here? Is this something you could do with those gamer keypads?

I was pressing control and alt and shift with my pinky fingers, and that's how I blew out my arm. I switched to a Kinesis Advantage keyboard and now I have control, alt, hyper, super, backspace, and shift under my left thumb. My right thumb has control, alt, hyper, super, enter, and space. I don't know anything about gamer keypads, is there one you suggest I investigate?

I’d start with this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaming_keypad

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#104

Post by Piraty »

jen729w wrote: post #13

I learned recently that there are way, way more alt-layouts than the ones you've heard of: Dvorak & Colemak. Not only that, people just change them to suit their needs! They use things like Hands Down [0] as a guide , and make up their own layout. Wild. [0]: https://sites.google.com/alanreiser.com/handsdown

https://keyboard-design.com/internet-letter-layout-db.html

site is a bit awkward to browse though.

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#105

Post by tengwar2 »

bux93 wrote: post #67
CaptainFever wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if I could draw the letter on my trackpad? The Apple Newton did that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton#Notes

Also the palm, they called it graffiti. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29 (Google's gboard offers a handwriting keyboard, but it's on the touch screen and doesn't count. Also, it's not graffiti, so a bit more error prone. It does recognize joined-up handwriting though.) There's also some keyboards on f-droid for braille text input and morse code input.

There were a couple of aftermarket systems for the Psion as well. Normally the keyboard was better, but writing on the screen turned out to be easier in a bumpy taxi.

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#106

Post by mbarria »

jen729w wrote: post #13

I learned recently that there are way, way more alt-layouts than the ones you've heard of: Dvorak & Colemak. Not only that, people just change them to suit their needs! They use things like Hands Down [0] as a guide , and make up their own layout. Wild. [0]: https://sites.google.com/alanreiser.com/handsdown

If you're interested, look at the layout doc: https://bit.ly/layout-doc-v2

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#107

Post by fuglede_ »

jslezak wrote: post #3

Yes! I have been wanting this forever. Keys are in too predictable a position

One way to avoid this element of surprise, for those who do not enjoy surprises, could be to have only a single key whose action upon clicking would simply be the most probable next action.

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#108

Post by ashoeafoot »

Could a LLM tailor the keyboard to intent ... as in it shifts keys around to help you write what it thinks you want to write? like a sentence starts with a if then the left keyboard becomes permutations of an future if clause on key,the right becomes else statements..

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#109

Post by willwade »

flir wrote: post #48
willwade wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thats wonderful. id like that to not change the order of the letters - but change the highlight order. Do a round 1 of frequency order first (just do first say 6 letters) then do a round 2 which is standard order.. i probably am not making much sense. Look at where I'm coming from in the world of Assistive Tech - https://docs.acecentre.org.uk/products/echo (go to around 5 min mark in the vide)

How about a backlit keyboard, and if the next letter is probably a vowel, only the vowels are lit? I'd be quite interested in trying that. Maybe as a learning aid. But if you get your typing speed up, I can see it being visually very noisy.

Well I knocked something together thanks really to @Lemaxoxo for his blog post inspiring me to do this.

https://scanningmvp.netlify.app/ - it’s more for my needs of an AT keyboard for scanning than your backlit one but you get the idea.

Re: Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)

#110

Post by _0ffh »

tetrisgm wrote: post #30

This project brilliantly points out that we are limited and shaped by how keys and layouts are presented to us. What I don’t understand is why not go all the way. Why not also change the concept of what’s needed to enter a character? It would make sense that keys aren’t the ideal affordance to express a key every time. Use a volume slider for a letter, use radio buttons, on/off toggles. What if I could draw the lette…

Something in this vein has actually been made quite some time ago: https://www.bltt.org/software/dasher/
Post reply on HN