Live data from Hacker News

A Motion-Sensing Keyboard

research.microsoft.com

71–80 of 140 posts

Re: A Motion-Sensing Keyboard

#71

Brilliant! Not sure I like that particular implementation (with IR), but the idea of having the whole desktop keyboard work like a giant track pad is an enticing one. Can a track pad surface be integrated into every keyboard key?

The problem with the implementation demonstrated in the video is that the gesture is recognised, and then the action happens. There is no one-to-one mapping between the gesture in progress and action on screen, so I suspect it will not feel anywhere near as nice as a trackpad or touchscreen.

Should be able to be improved once its in use and they have enough usage reports. For now I'm guessing there is too many false positives during typing itself, eg moving your hand toward the mouse or something else. There is also all those peckers out there to think about doing weird and strange hovering motions. In the future, if they can map out enough false positives they could potentially fix it.

Also, I'm sure someone with this tech could make use of a certain gesture that activates one-to-one style mapping for a certain period of time / until a button is pressed.

Re: A Motion-Sensing Keyboard

#72
post #2

I find it amusing that they used an Apple keyboard... Then again the chiclet style keys seem to be a big factor in the build.

AFAICT, It's one of the cheapest bluetooth keyboards [1] on Amazon. They just hacked in some new electronics.

I recognized it immediately because I also had to tear off the plastic casing. It shipped to me with a loose connection.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Slim-Bluetooth-Wireless-Keyboard...

Re: A Motion-Sensing Keyboard

#75

Brilliant! Not sure I like that particular implementation (with IR), but the idea of having the whole desktop keyboard work like a giant track pad is an enticing one. Can a track pad surface be integrated into every keyboard key?

[deleted]

Re: A Motion-Sensing Keyboard

#77

Brilliant! Not sure I like that particular implementation (with IR), but the idea of having the whole desktop keyboard work like a giant track pad is an enticing one. Can a track pad surface be integrated into every keyboard key?

The problem with the implementation demonstrated in the video is that the gesture is recognised, and then the action happens. There is no one-to-one mapping between the gesture in progress and action on screen, so I suspect it will not feel anywhere near as nice as a trackpad or touchscreen.

I think that could be improved with a higher resolution sensor, but the question is whether you could build such a thing while retaining space for physical keys.

IIRC, current gesture recognition still takes a couple hundred milliseconds on modern consumer touch screens (iPhones, etc.), especially for the "click" action.

Re: A Motion-Sensing Keyboard

#78
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people can disagree about "move the camera" vs. "move the paper" - but pinch-to-zoom-in is wrong in all contexts. It's not wrong, it's just another manner of perspective: "shrink the aperture" vs. "shrink the paper". > how did these people not notice that they implemented pinch-to-zoom backward from how it works on their phones? On a touchscreen, it feels like you're actually working with the content directly, but…

That's the best description I've ever heard. Apple really got this wrong with their new default "natural" scrolling on OS X.

Eh. I prefer natural scrolling. Took me two seconds to get used to and I don't like the 'normal' way anymore. On my work laptop, though, I keep it off because it reverses a mouse scroll wheel too, which I find abhorrent.

Re: A Motion-Sensing Keyboard

#79

Brilliant! Not sure I like that particular implementation (with IR), but the idea of having the whole desktop keyboard work like a giant track pad is an enticing one. Can a track pad surface be integrated into every keyboard key?

The problem with the implementation demonstrated in the video is that the gesture is recognised, and then the action happens. There is no one-to-one mapping between the gesture in progress and action on screen, so I suspect it will not feel anywhere near as nice as a trackpad or touchscreen.

For that matter even with Touch Screen, a gesture is extracted/identified by touch Algorithms (either in Touch controller or SoC). Only later, an action is taken. So there will defenitely be an inherent delay. These algos involve similar classification methods as mentioned in this demo.
Post reply on HN