We're now getting very close to the mature PC/tablet/smart phone,
though it doesn't have a name yet. Microsoft's Surface, announced
with the usual euphoria a day or two ago, comes closest. But it's
still beset with one problem. It's too large. At around 12" (30cm) x
8" (20cm) it still needs to be shrunk further so that it's the size
of, say, a small paperback: something that can be comfortably slipped
into a packet or handbag but, with the flip of a lid one way or the
other, is equally able to be used as a phone or a PC.
Unlike Apple, Microsoft have been clever enough to realize that a
keyboard is still necessary on any tablet that claims to be
versatile. Even if voice recognition software becomes far more
advanced, able to cope with any dialect or timbre, we're now moving
into a specialized age where the written or typed word is required to
be more precise than ever. It can't always be dictated as a one-off.
But Microsoft have not yet paid as much attention to the keyboard as
they have done elsewhere in their machine.
The problem is our finger-tips. They're too wide. Thus we still
require a keyboard that's at least 10" (25 cm) wide in order to
accommodate everything we need. Otherwise, we'd be pressing two or
even three keys at once more often than not unless we slowed down to
snail pace. But we don't need the keys to be the size of fingertips.
If Microsoft had some biologists among their researchers then they
might have solved this problem because Nature has already done it.
True, it's in the visual department and not the tactile. At any one
instant of time our eyes see only a small 2 degree cone of sharp
vision before they flick elsewhere. Perception tails off steeply
outside the cone. Why not the same for sharply sensitized pressure
pads? With a smaller keyboard of about 8" (200 cm) we'd always be
impinging on two or three keys but if it responded only to a very
small cone in the centre of each jab even the clumsiest person among
us would soon learn to type each letter unambiguously.
There we are then. I've solved the next step for Apple or Microsoft,
or Nokia or any other manufacturer. What's more, by writing this I've
prevented any of them claiming copyright and perhaps monopolizing the
innovation for years to come as corporations are wont to do.
I'm now going to make a request that I've never made before. Could
each of you publicise this posting among other lists (or key
contacts) as widely as you can? I would like to make sure that the
idea is well and truly within the public domain if it is, in fact,
successful. Thank you.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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