SciAm.com: The keyboard is dead; Long live... Whatever

hiake · Oct 3, 2007

The keyboard is dead; Long live... Whatever

By Gary Stix

Kannuu, a Dallas company, has just come up with a technique that allows text entry with one thumb that it claims may be able to match the entry speed of a full keyboard, reports Electronic Engineering Times. The software anticipates what the user is typing by providing partial entries as feedback, not full words.

If a user wishes to build the word "technology" using the Kannuu system, he or she would enter "t" and then "h", "w", "e", and "o" would appear on the screen at the four compass points. After selecting "e" using the up, down or sideways keys," the letters "r", "mp", "chn", and "st" would pop up and so on. The word can be constructed in seven clicks on the four-way dial of a handheld device instead of the usual 13 keystrokes.

A one-thumb device that matches the speed of a full keyboard would be an answer to my dreams, the critical enabler for truly useful pocket computing.

I dunno, though. I just finished reading an article in Science that contained this sentence:

"The metallic state resolved by photoemission on the 111 surface (normal to the trigonal) has a Fermi surface whose radius is on the order of 0.5 to 3 nm-1 and the expected oscillations would have a frequency range of 100 to 1000 T."
Click to expand...

If the Kannuu system "anticipates" and lets me thumb type that sentence at the rate of 60 wpm, the founders of the company deserve the riches of Page and Brin.

I think I'll still be lugging my laptop for a few more years to come.

Source: SciAm.com
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Would it be another failure in popularization like the T9 input? But I do agree to the author: I'll still be lugging my laptop for a few years to come -tongue2

Dan · Oct 3, 2007

this is destined to fail.

what happens if people want to write words not in its database? diff languages.. gaming/chatting words...

hiake · Oct 3, 2007

dann said: ↑

this is destined to fail.

what happens if people want to write words not in its database? diff languages.. gaming/chatting words...
Click to expand...

I guess it would go perfectly with that stupid MS office... It keeps on changing my -our to -or!!!

But yeah, I know what you mean... Guess there will still be "option" to use the slower, traditional input method -tongue2

The_Jelly · Oct 3, 2007

I'd still stick to a keyboard.

SciAm.com: The keyboard is dead; Long live... Whatever

hiake Vardøgr of da E.Twin

Dan 8-D

hiake Vardøgr of da E.Twin

The_Jelly NSFW? :P