Years ago, I came up with the idea of a virtual keyboard using sensors on the fingers. I was amused to see this idea used in the Terry Gilliam film Brazil (1985).
Last year, Canesta invented a laser virtual keyboard. A visible (red) laser is used to project a keyboard layout onto a flat surface. An invisible laser (infrared) is used to illuminate a plane a few millimeters above the surface. A CMOS image sensor detects fingers crossing the plane to “press” a key.
Canesta licenses the technology to other companies for incorporation into products. There are virtual keyboards for use with PDAs and PCs, using either a serial or Bluetooth interface. For instance, the Bluetooth virtual laser keyboard is sold by mytreo.net, for use with the Treo 650.
Since I have a Treo 650, I visited my friends Stan and Gavin to try their keyboards. Gavin has the Bluetooth model, and was able to demonstrate it working with his Treo 650. The keyboard is reportedly able to pair with up to eight hosts, but we were unable to get my Treo 650 to discover it.
I tried to type a few sentences into Gavin’s Treo. It is possible that with practice I might be able to use it semieffectively. The main problem is that the lack of tactile feedback as to the location of the keys means that I have to spend a lot of time looking at the keyboard. That’s a habit I spent years breaking when learning to touch-type, and I’m not keen to take it up again.
I’ll might buy one of the Bluetooth keyboards, but more as a curiousity than for any practical purpose.
CMOS image sensors and high-performance microprocessors suitable for image processing have gotten so much better and cheaper in the last few years that I suspect that an improved version that actually watches finger motions in 3D, rather than reflections in a 2D plane, might be feasible now or soon. I think such a keyboard would be considerably more usable.