Realistic, "alternative" mobile text input methods?
June 23, 2010 8:02 AM Subscribe
I want to be able to do real text input on a mobile device. Not two-thumb it. And I want to be able to enter special characters such as numbers and ()*+-[TAB] easily. Basically, I want to be able to write programs, not just misspelled SMS messages, more-or-less at full speed on a tiny device. How?
Bluetooth keyboard? No, I can't carry it around (even the fold-up ones won't really fit in a pocket well). Plus I need to put it on a surface to use it.
Laser keyboard? Promising, but still requires a surface.
One-handed chorded thing? Maybe, if it can handle the special characters.
Some kind of fingers-moving-in-the-air system? Are any available anywhere?
I don't necessarily need a retail product. I can handle a simple/medium-hard DIY project as long as it supports some standard like bluetooth so I don't also need a special mobile device.
Bluetooth keyboard? No, I can't carry it around (even the fold-up ones won't really fit in a pocket well). Plus I need to put it on a surface to use it.
Laser keyboard? Promising, but still requires a surface.
One-handed chorded thing? Maybe, if it can handle the special characters.
Some kind of fingers-moving-in-the-air system? Are any available anywhere?
I don't necessarily need a retail product. I can handle a simple/medium-hard DIY project as long as it supports some standard like bluetooth so I don't also need a special mobile device.
Wired had a little blurb (in 2000) suggesting that the folks at berkeley were looking at releasing a bunch of MEMS chips and a receiver, - not sure where they got with it (it isn't on their site):
Hand Jobposted by jenkinsEar at 8:22 AM on June 23, 2010
Get ready to ditch your keyboard. Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center's Virtual Keyboard system lets you glue 10 little chips onto your fingernails and type away anywhere. These system peripherals contain tiny, battery-powered MEMS accelerometers that track your digits' location and movement, transmitting via low-power radio to a nearby receiver that plugs into any computer.
Available 2005.
Virtual Keyboard receiver: $50; fingernail chips: $20 per set of 10. Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center: +1 (510) 642 3214, www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu.
I've always wanted a chorded keyboard (one hand dealie) but have you looked into speech to text? I'm guessing that your best bet would be an iOS or Android device on that front. As far as special characters you may be able to low-tech it and come up with a system where you type, say, /tab for tab, and do a search and replace once you get the document to a PC.
posted by monkeymadness at 8:22 AM on June 23, 2010
posted by monkeymadness at 8:22 AM on June 23, 2010
You could build yourself a Clove 2. It's a chording glove design that can handle every key on a standard keyboard, but the demo video suggests that using it is actually quite slow and error-prone. I think it would take a lot of effort to become proficient at using it. Also: ugly.
Beyond that, I'm not sure something like this exists. Alternative text entry methods like Swype would not work well for programming because it relies very heavily on a dictionary to choose from multiple possible interpretations of a given swipe path on the keyboard. I suppose one could build a programming-aware version of it that would take into account your programming language's syntax and the variables, methods, etc you've defined, but you'd still have the problem of defining new variables, methods, etc being very slow. Furthermore, you'd be slowed down a lot by keys like +/=, where either value could be used in many cases.
I suspect if something like you're describing existed then it would already be either integrated into mobile phones (especially those that have slideout keyboards already) or touted to no end on sites like Engadget.
Your best bet is probably to move to a phone with a large, high-quality slideout keyboard. If the rumors are to be believed, then it looks like the Nokia N9 might be up to snuff, and it will run MeeGo Linux.
posted by jedicus at 8:24 AM on June 23, 2010
Beyond that, I'm not sure something like this exists. Alternative text entry methods like Swype would not work well for programming because it relies very heavily on a dictionary to choose from multiple possible interpretations of a given swipe path on the keyboard. I suppose one could build a programming-aware version of it that would take into account your programming language's syntax and the variables, methods, etc you've defined, but you'd still have the problem of defining new variables, methods, etc being very slow. Furthermore, you'd be slowed down a lot by keys like +/=, where either value could be used in many cases.
I suspect if something like you're describing existed then it would already be either integrated into mobile phones (especially those that have slideout keyboards already) or touted to no end on sites like Engadget.
Your best bet is probably to move to a phone with a large, high-quality slideout keyboard. If the rumors are to be believed, then it looks like the Nokia N9 might be up to snuff, and it will run MeeGo Linux.
posted by jedicus at 8:24 AM on June 23, 2010
Response by poster: I'm already using a "large" slideout keyboard, but it's still two-thumb time.
That Berkeley thing is *exactly* what I was imagining. I even briefly considered building it myself before realizing where the devil would be (the details). Despite now living in a post-2005 world, I don't see it available anywhere, at least by that name.
I don't care about ugliness. The real problem with the clove, and with other one-handed and chorded input systems, is lack of pipelining. When I'm typing on a keyboard I can have multiple fingers moving at once to increase speed. For instance, when typing "metafilter" my right index finger is moving towards the 'm' and at the same time my left middle finger is moving towards the 'e' so that they keystrikes happen very closely in time but in the right order. On a chorded keyboard, my whole hand is involved in typing the 'm' so I can't start the 'e' until I'm done with that. Sooo slooooooow.
posted by DU at 8:38 AM on June 23, 2010
That Berkeley thing is *exactly* what I was imagining. I even briefly considered building it myself before realizing where the devil would be (the details). Despite now living in a post-2005 world, I don't see it available anywhere, at least by that name.
I don't care about ugliness. The real problem with the clove, and with other one-handed and chorded input systems, is lack of pipelining. When I'm typing on a keyboard I can have multiple fingers moving at once to increase speed. For instance, when typing "metafilter" my right index finger is moving towards the 'm' and at the same time my left middle finger is moving towards the 'e' so that they keystrikes happen very closely in time but in the right order. On a chorded keyboard, my whole hand is involved in typing the 'm' so I can't start the 'e' until I'm done with that. Sooo slooooooow.
posted by DU at 8:38 AM on June 23, 2010
Dasher is a clever text input method that's never gotten wide implementation. I assume that with an appropriate text model it'd be good for coding.
posted by hattifattener at 9:14 AM on June 23, 2010
posted by hattifattener at 9:14 AM on June 23, 2010
I've wanted something like this or like this forever, but haven't found anything commercially available, or that was practical as a DIY project, even with my fairly advanced electronics skills. Like DU said, it's the details. Acquiring the parts, or developing the code to drive it... I'm an electronics geek, but not a coder. :(
If you find anything promising, I'd love to know!
posted by xedrik at 10:14 AM on June 23, 2010
If you find anything promising, I'd love to know!
posted by xedrik at 10:14 AM on June 23, 2010
Response by poster: Yes, rings! cstross mentioned ring-based input in a book I read recently, which got me re-energized to find some input method. I'm glad someone has worked on this, but it doesn't seem to be a major area of research. (I was imagining the rings contained accelerometers, but I see that link doesn't and now that I think about it, cstross didn't say how his worked.)
posted by DU at 10:29 AM on June 23, 2010
posted by DU at 10:29 AM on June 23, 2010
On my slate tablet, instead of the onscreen QWERTY keyboard, I use a smaller, uniquely laid out onscreen keyboard called MessagEase. You can program in macros (entire paragraphs if you want, I think), and enter paired characters for less common characters (e.g., n+~ for ñ). The layout is fairly intuitive once you get used to it. And if you can remember where things are on the "other" keyboard (you can flip between alpha/numeric+special chars), you can use them even if they're not visible. Like, say, parenthesis or curly brackets.
I'm not sure you can get it on a phone. Their site says "Available for iPhone, Palm, Pocket PC, and Tablet PC".
posted by timepiece at 2:49 PM on June 23, 2010
I'm not sure you can get it on a phone. Their site says "Available for iPhone, Palm, Pocket PC, and Tablet PC".
posted by timepiece at 2:49 PM on June 23, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Oktober at 8:19 AM on June 23, 2010