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Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

blog.vive.com

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Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#51

Post by mikeash »

silversmith wrote: post #49
veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

I'm not sure it's nonsense. What I see is incremental change. Take the workstation, and move it to virtual space. Then add more 2D screens. Then try a different input or display method, one small step at a time. Sounds reasonable to me, much more so than re-inventing every part of the interface at the same time, and hoping to get it all within spitting distance of what's right.

It’s as stupid as creating a fancy raster graphics system with windowing and fast refresh rates and hardware acceleration for 3D rendering, and then using it to display a bunch of programs that pretend to be a 1960s teletype.

Using new technology to incrementally improve existing ideas and techniques usually works better than trying to start completely from scratch.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#52

Post by [deleted] »

klibertp wrote: post #20
mlevental wrote: post #2

does this just display a keyboard in the field of view of the vive perspective? why do i need to see my keyboard if i know how to touch type?

A lot of people can't touch-type. I can't, not really, I need to glance at the keyboard once in a while. My typing speed is comparable to touch-typists', which is why I never felt the need to learn to properly touch-type. The need of seeing the keyboard is problematic in very few situations in practice, and with a back-lit keyboard it's never a problem... as long as seeing my keyboard is possible at all, which was no…

[deleted]

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#53

Post by numbsafari »

nwah1 wrote: post #45
veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

That was the same thinking behind Elon Musk's startup Neuralink, but given that there really aren't any options that are substantially better, Logitech isn't being stupid. Perhaps some combination of voice, gesture, and 3D could be useful specifically while in-game. But for productivity, I don't think there's anything better than a traditional workstation. Voice has privacy issues. Gesture recognition is inaccurate a…

Voice not only has privacy issues, but could you imagine working in one of those god awful “open floor plan” offices with a bunch of people speaking in JavaScript all day?

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#54

Post by jayd16 »

veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

>Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key presses and 3D tracking of finger movements? I get it, Logitech wants to keep selling keyboards, but for VR experience I would rather have tracking of facial features and eye movement.

No. You don't get it. This doesn't do 3d finger tracking. It just figures out where the keyboard is and does some edge detection to give a rough idea of where your hands are.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#55

Post by jayd16 »

wwwigham wrote: post #19

I'm more impressed by the videos of the hand tracking around the keyboard than the tracker in the keyboard! Is that fidelity just using the Vive's outward facing camera? They don't show any tracking gloves in the mockups.

Its actually pretty simple. If you know where the keyboard is, you can clip out that part of the camera's input. Then you just need some edge detection to get the hand silhouettes.

And actually...that seems like a portable idea. So I suppose you could do this for any tracked thing.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#56

Post by jayd16 »

BatFastard wrote: post #41

As someone who has been a developer of virtual worlds for 17 years. I can say that this is a very incremental change, as all of the changes have been since 1994. Personally I think we need to reimagine interfaces to the world around us, even the virtual worlds (VR/AR/MR) around us. Voice input, AI, hand sensing technologies could make for new ways for changing the worlds. The book Daemon by Danial Suarez and his eSpa…

A lot of these technologies are being developed and its pretty awesome. However, I'll argue there's clearly space for a keyboard in the virtual world.

If you want to sculpt a model in the real world, you'd use clay and your hands. We can use VR to move away from KBM interaction for things like that.

If you want to write a book in the real world you...type it out. Its the best way we know to get text out of your brain and somewhere else. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#57

Post by veli_joza »

silversmith wrote: post #49
veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

I'm not sure it's nonsense. What I see is incremental change. Take the workstation, and move it to virtual space. Then add more 2D screens. Then try a different input or display method, one small step at a time. Sounds reasonable to me, much more so than re-inventing every part of the interface at the same time, and hoping to get it all within spitting distance of what's right.

I would also hope for such incremental change, but I don't see it happening. If you take a look at historical development of desktop OS UIs, you'll see all concepts established in 80s and not much (any) progress since then. Icons, buttons, menues, windows, even whole applications (file manager) are unchanged, while there's very few new UI elements (date picker, for example).

VR should be considered as completely new medium. 2D windows in VR should only be used as backwards-compatibility layer. Re-inventing every part of interface at the same time sounds great to me. Let's make as many competing solutions and then pick ones that work the best. This paves the way not only for rich VR experience, but also for AR.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#58

Post by ethbro »

nwah1 wrote: post #45
veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

That was the same thinking behind Elon Musk's startup Neuralink, but given that there really aren't any options that are substantially better, Logitech isn't being stupid. Perhaps some combination of voice, gesture, and 3D could be useful specifically while in-game. But for productivity, I don't think there's anything better than a traditional workstation. Voice has privacy issues. Gesture recognition is inaccurate a…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#History

QWERTY

All that needs to be said about the difficulty of changing a primary interface method.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#59

Post by pault »

deevolution wrote: post #46
veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

Until someone invents a neural interface, keyboards might be the best option for text input. That or develop purely conversational interfaces, but the issue with conversational interfaces is they lack the privacy of a physical interface.

I keep wondering if chording keyboards could be the answer for VR text input. It would require learning a new input system, but I'm curious if one could eventually become proficient enough to reach average qwerty speeds. I can't remember the name but I remember seeing a google-produced chip that tracked small finger movements, and I imagine something like this clip from Children of Men could work: https://youtu.be/sJO0n6kvPRU?t=2m4s

I spent a few hours the other day searching for existing chording keyboards and they were all really clunky.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#60

Post by tw04 »

veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

WHY? There's a reason we have the keyboard, and it wasn't a limitation of technology. The reason the "typewriter" interface was carried over to the PC is because it's GOOD. This is almost as bad as when MS decided Kinect would replace all game controllers because look hands free. It turns out we have hands for a reason. The speed and precision we can do things with our hands far exceeds basically anything else beyond a direct link to your brain.

Have you ever watched someone who is handicapped who has eye tracking for a keyboard? Have you paid attention to how slow and error prone it is? What on earth makes you want to have THAT as your primary input method???

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