Let me introduce you, to Monsieur Laurent Guyot-Sionnest, CEO of Tiki'labs based out of Paris France. I actually stumbled upon Laurent's invention by accident... and to be honest I thought it was something else entirely. He notice me poking around his stuff and quickly came over (probably a bit concerned I might break something). He comes over and starts explaining that I'm not, in fact, looking at his invention. I wasn't sure if I could take him seriously after all his heavy French accent was a bit suspicious, but I let him talk, and what he explained to me... I cannot stop thinking about. I was looking at something... that can change the world.
The first thing Laurent gets out is a piece of paper with 6 squares on it... 3x2 configuration. So he asks me to place my hand on it and starts to explain... how his new keyboard will work. 6 keys???!!! Yes, 6 keys to replace the QWERTY keyboards we use on mobile devices... Surely you mock me sir... mock me not sir... no... he was serious.
As the presentation progressed he explained how the 6 keys were split up into quadrants (or squares), and how each quadrant had 2 rows inside it. This is VERY intuitive and surprisingly easy system to learn.
The basic layout of the keyboard is this picture:
Each quadrant has carefully picked letters/symbols in it. It has been especially configured for maximum speed and ease. So imagine 6 keys lined up like the 6 squares above (for this example I'm going to use QWE and ASD). Let's say you want to write the letter "a", just hit "q" once, which then switches the program to show this...
So the program is told which quadrant you want and then that switches the same 6 keys so you are now asked which row you would like... hitting the "q" again tells the program to input the letter "a". Of course if you wanted to input the letter "b" same logic would work except you would hit "q" once and "w" for the second input.
That's it, you now know the basics. It takes minutes to learn, and a couple of days (at most) to feel comfy with it. The goal is... you can go as fast as 40+WPM once you really use this thing. The other obstacle is the keyboard itself, as you will need one that has much less travel on the keys. Your fingers don't have time to wait for the keys to go all the way down and back up, they want to press the keys much faster than that. (here is the TikiLabs official presentation)
I am very excited about this product, even saw a version of it running on Symbian OS. Larry plans on a Windows Mobile version as well as releasing a separate USB keyboard attachment (like the number key attachments you can get today).
The idea is, you will be able to type as fast or faster than today, using only one hand. And with fewer keys and more logical layout, you should make far fewer mistakes as well... and truly be able to type without looking at the keyboard (yes I know some can do that now, but most can't). I was really impressed by the simplicity of this solution, and hope to be able to help make it a reality. I mock you not sir... it's THAT good. :-)
2 comments:
Awesome. Can't wait.
Check out the Phraze-It Keyboard. It has only 5 large on-screen keys per row for typing with the fingertips of your fingers or thumbs on the touch screens of touch screen phones or PDAs.
The patented Phraze-It Keyboard from Prevalent Devices LLC is easy to use to type complete sentences to create email, text messages and even documents. The Phraze-It (R) Keyboard is available for download at www.prevalentdevices.com or Handango
The patented Phraze-It Keyboard has the keys of a complete computer keyboard, but only 3 rows of five keys, and support in languages such as English, French, German and Spanish and others. Phraze-It also comes with the cool Phraze-It Game and a lot of cool features. Very easy to learn and use for typing complete sentences on large on-screen keys.
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