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LaminatorX
on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:05AM
from the Knowledge...so-much...so-fast.-It's-glorious! dept.
from the Knowledge...so-much...so-fast.-It's-glorious! dept.
El Reg reports on upcoming keyboard ideas from Toshiba:
Toshiba USA has revealed that it will add a key dedicated to summoning Cortana, Windows 10's digital assistant.
Toshiba's Jeff Barney, the company's veep and GM for all things PC in North America, says the new button will appear on every keyboard the company sells.
PCWorld reports that "the key will sit in the upper left area, near the function keys".
A quick glance at the many keyboards in Vulture Souths eyrie suggests that this means the ESC key is in peril.
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Cortana Threatens to Blow-away your "Esc" Key
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A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after
that begins to bunch them.
-- Mencken
(Score: 3, Touché) by dyingtolive on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:09AM
They still make computers?
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1) by dj245 on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:43PM
They still make computers?
They sure do. When I worked at Toshiba, I had a M9. I carried that laptop all over the world. Aside from a hard drive failure after ~3 years I never had a problem. Their business laptops are very boring and conservative, but reliable, just like the Thinkpad series used to be.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:33PM
Can confirm for their consumer laptops as well. Bought at least 4 of them around 10 years ago or so. One of them is still running and operating today with a relative.
I had more problems with my HP equipment then I did Toshiba. They made good stuff when I was buying them.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Funny) by istartedi on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:11AM
They said I was nuts. Who's laughing now MUUAHAHAHA!
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:45PM
With or without the windows key between the left control and alt?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:41PM
You know.... I don't actually object to that key :)
I find it functional and useful on Windows machines. My Logitech K750 has a Windows key there, and a function key on the between the right ctrl and alt. All of the 'special' keys are accessible off the the F1-F12 with the function key pressed. All of that being said, if Microsoft gets rid of the ESC key........
"Why don't they just fucking dip our balls in honey, and stake us to an ANT FIELD!!!" - John Malkovich
In all seriousness though, let's not threaten the ESC key please. If anything needs to go, the Windows key can go first.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Informative) by TWX on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:07PM
You never played first-person shooters in the era when the Window and Menu keys first appeared; the games would play under Windows but would get very, very angry when those keys were hit by mistake. It often wasn't possible to return to the game, and even if one could return it usually meant one was killed several times over before one managed to find one's way back in.
And for those wondering why someone was playing a DOS game in Windows, it was for the network services so one could play against others that weren't in the same LAN segment or through dialup Internet. Not as easy to do those in DOS as it was in Windows 95.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS...
and everywhere the language went, it was a total loss.
(Score: 2) by TK on Friday June 19 2015, @01:57PM
I remember playing DOS games on a Windows 95 desktop. Platformers loved to use Ctrl as jump and alt as fire. Well guess what's between those two bastards?!?!
Of course, by the time I'd switched back to the game window, I was usually dead. That is, if the game could even manage to get back there without crashing.
Kids these days with their USB game pads and their alt+tab that doesn't force you to reboot. Luxury! [youtube.com]
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 5, Funny) by VortexCortex on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:15AM
When it comes to Cortana, there will be no Escape.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:41AM
And no Return [staticworld.net] either.
(this is serious, guys, the linked image is the first from TFA in PC World!).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Wierd0n3 on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:02AM
if you look at the shift key, there is a decal ring around the text. on the "Cortana" return key, there is not. someone is having fun in Photoshop.
personally, I'm of the opinion that if it doesn't end up like a media key, they are going to get some backlash.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:01AM
If they want to get rid of a key (or rather, replace it with a more 'OS dependent' key), do what Google did with the ChromeBooks and get rid of that annoying CAPS LOCK key. On machines I work on that I can't disable or remap it in the OS, I'm not above physically removing it if required.
The problem with CAPS LOCK is that it's in completely the wrong place ... with the right place being a switch on the back of the machine somewhere.
(Score: 5, Funny) by WizardFusion on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:23AM
WAIT, THERE IS A CAPS LOCK KEY.
GREAT, NOW I CAN STOP HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY ALL THE TIME.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:15PM
WOW, THIS IS LIKE A SHORTCUT FOR COOL!
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:29PM
I hate you all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @02:58PM
What? Take away a free key I can configure however I want? What's next? Eliminating the Scroll Lock key?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:16AM
Cortana can go fuck itself. You will pry vi off my cold dead fingers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:36AM
Emacs
Makes
A
Computer
Slow
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 18 2015, @04:42AM
"We use vi son. They use emacs."
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:56AM
We have always been at war with EMACS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:31PM
Emacs
Makes
A
Computer
Slow
But it's still better than an OS like Windows....
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 18 2015, @04:49PM
Emacs *is* and OS. It's ideal for old-fashioned text-only computer screens.
I still use one of its apps -- the text editor.
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:50PM
um, woosh.
(Score: 5, Funny) by coolgopher on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:42AM
"Hey Cortana, vim command mode." <clickety click> "Hey Cortana, vim command mode." <click-click> "Hey Cortana, vim command mode." <click> "Hey Cortana, vim command mode." <clickety-clack-click> "Hey Cortana, vim command mode." <tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap> "Hey Cortana, vim command mode." <tappety-click> "Hey Cortana, vim command mode..."
First the rumours about Apple doing away with the Escape key, now Toshiba... sheesh! Escape shall be the key, and the key shall be escape! Thank $deity for keyboard remapping (until it becomes a hardware-only key *sigh*).
Also, don't get me wrong, I'm actually quite fond of Cortana on my phone - "she" has managed to land just on the right side of the fence between annoying and useless.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by CoolHand on Thursday June 18 2015, @01:42PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 18 2015, @04:51PM
How do you type hajj?
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:54PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by jcross on Thursday June 18 2015, @06:04PM
Why would you want to type that word? The NSA is watching!
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:30AM
we still have the Coke Bottle key.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday June 18 2015, @04:53AM
we still have the Coke Bottle key.
ok, I give up. What is that?
As for the cortana key... vs escape... yuck. I'm trying the win10 tech preview; and although i do like windows 10... its not currently usable; the search built into the start menu can't stop doing web suggestions etc... insane that you can't turn it off. I'm liking it overall... but will not consider upgrading if they don't fix that. The cortana integration... couldn't care less. don't want it on my desktop at all. I'm not sure who really does.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:22AM
The cortana integration... couldn't care less. don't want it on my desktop at all. I'm not sure who really does.
The people who miss Clippy?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:08AM
we still have the Coke Bottle key.
ok, I give up. What is that?
That's the button you press to dispense a bottle of cool fresh coke right into your hand. Don't you have one? I thought they came standard.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 18 2015, @12:45PM
Mine only dispenses Nuka Quantum.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by TK on Friday June 19 2015, @02:57PM
You get coke? All I can get is Tab. Warm Tab at that.
The other day I found the button that opens the cup holder. That was pretty neat. I haven't tried it with a big gulp yet, but I'll let you know how that goes.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:28AM
http://knowledgeweighsnothing.com/diy-how-to-make-a-spare-key-from-a-soda-bottle/
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:50AM
I'm not sure who really does.
A constantly listening digital 'assistant'? The NSA, duh. Remember that scene in one of the Batman movies where he used all the cell phones to find someone then had Morgan Freeman shut it down? The NSA would only do the first part of that.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday June 18 2015, @04:57AM
he he... so how long has it been since "esc" would return you to command line. For the last 10 years or so about all it does is "escape" from "full screen".
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mbo42 on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:35AM
Esc = No, Cancel, Back out. Enter=Yes, OK, proceed
Try thumping it some time, it's handy :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:41AM
Since the first thing a vi coder does is remap the esc key nearer to the home keys, putting esc on ctrl and putting ctrl on caps lock and then moving caps lock on the esc key. Loosing the esc key is no big loss, now if they could relabel the other keys to match my individual choice that would be nice. Caps lock is the key we need to loose.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:03AM
So they don't really remove it, they just loose it, so you have a decent chance that it didn't already fall off when your keyboard arrives?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 18 2015, @12:49PM
Mine is square, is seated in a square hole, and stubbornly resists rotation to the left. Can't loose it at all. How do we loose it?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:26PM
https://m.youtube.com/results?q=angry%20german%20kid&sm=1
That is how you remove the ESC key!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday June 18 2015, @02:09PM
I've been using vi/vim for 30 years and not only have I ever remapped my keyboard like this, I've never heard of anyone doing it.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:45AM
So I keep seeing these adverts on TV for Cortana, and it looks to me like Microsoft are proudly announcing that they just invented Siri, about 3 years after Siri went out of fashion. Is that about it, or is Cortana somehow different to / better than Siri?
Also, does anyone actually use these voice-rec digital assistant things? I know there was a breathless five minutes back in about 2012 when everyone thought it was the next big thing and everyone was having conversations with their phones, but it soon faded away and I assumed it was because it turns out it's just quicker and easier to do whatever you're trying to do the old fashioned way. Is this not the case? I can imagine it's very useful for people with disabilities who otherwise might have trouble operating their devices, but for the rest of us..?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:55AM
I use Android's voice control for a few actions like setting a quick alarm to wake me up from a nap, and a few other things. On occasion I've used it recently to do a quick response using my smart watch when I don't feel like pulling my phone out. In general, I find that when doing something by voice is much faster than doing it directly you need to work on your direct interface, although there are probably some exceptions.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 18 2015, @01:58PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:31PM
A command line does not even remotely make you a Luddite. It's by far the fasted way of doing many (not all) operations. Just the ability to use regular expression gives a huge boost, and when you throw command history, variables, etc in, it can't be beat.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @01:21PM
My phone has an app which detects when I'm driving. If I am driving and I receive a text, it offers to text-to-speech the message for me. When it does, it asks if I want to respond. This feature is pretty damn useful.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by quacking duck on Thursday June 18 2015, @01:57PM
Siri went out of fashion only because it has more utility than novelty now. You know, function over form.
Voice will never replace typing or other manual interface, just as smartphones are not meant to replace a full computer, and the mouse/trackpad was not meant to replace the keyboard.
What it is, though, is an additional tool at your disposal that's better suited to some tasks than what came before it.
(Score: 1) by sparky on Thursday June 18 2015, @02:30PM
I would love to use the voice rec more often but don't because it only seems accurate about 1 out of 3 times. It seems like the technology should be a little more refined by now.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:56AM
Any good tip for means to change the text on keyboard buttons?
First Microsoft mangled the keyboard with that shitty "Windows key", then they made them listening friendly with Bluetooth, to top it of they now will remove the Esc key?
And Google will make evil by doing away with the Caps Lock [forchrome.com] key?
Fuck that!, leave my fucking keyboard alone.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 18 2015, @12:59PM
There's a difference in classes of users. There are regular users, who primarily do passive, entertainment activities that require few interactions, and people who need computers to get work done. So far that the first camp has had lots of options with smartphones and tablets and now smartwatches and such. The trouble is when the makers of regular computers want to try to follow in those footsteps and be one of the cool kids, too. On that score, I have rather thought things have been moving in the wrong direction for a while now.
I like vi because I don't have to take my hands out of typing position. I like the vimperator plugin for FF and chrome because I can navigate the web with the same keys. I am much more productive that way. Still on occasion I need to mousey click on something, but that's OK because I have a Thinkpad with the eraser nub in the middle and don't have to get out of typing position much. Making me touch the screen to do that, as for example a Surface would, is a big step backward. Getting rid of the ESC key would be no less so. Instant no-sale.
It would be nice to see industrial designers approach physical interfaces from the perspective of making them easier to use for people who need them to work, ie., us.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Thursday June 18 2015, @02:35PM
With esc being "cancel" for a number of operations, I find myself mashing it on a regular basis. To the point where I will pry off the F1 key to make a larger target.
The particular use case where I do this is CAD software, but I've encountered it elsewhere too.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:51PM
If you have a mechanical keyboard then there should be some great options available to you. Checkout 3d printed keycaps online, there is a huge variety.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by TK on Friday June 19 2015, @03:50PM
I use Autocad and Inventor at work. I also removed my F1 key because I mash the keyboard when I angrily high Esc and was sick of the Inventor "help" dialog popping up when I'm at my most frustrated.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2) by useless on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:16PM
Silver button in the corner [notebookitalia.it]
On mineI think it's for toggling power/performance in Windows, but I got it remapped to bring up Everything in E19. Quite handy without sacrificing any of the usual keys.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @03:18AM
remapped to bring up Everything in E19
Damn, either Rasterman took all those jibes really hard about it taking so long from e16 to e17, or he jumped onto the chrome/firefox versioning bandwagon! Hell, e18 has just barely been out!
But, I will have to check it out to see if they brought back customizing themes without creating one from scratch. Been sticking to e17 since the devs removed stuff like ability to easily mix bits from multiple themes when they went from e17 to e18, and I don't want to have to go to the work of creating a custom theme to get the equivalent result. A light theme that is easy on the eyes, a cross between dark, japan, and bling. Tthe result is light (in spite of some stuff from the dark theme), and has zero visible bling (bling theme pager is very nice when the shelf style is set to transparent, and the bling wallpaper is a great, ergonomic, light grey shade for behind white background xterm windows), japan provides window decorations that are a good color shade for the rest of the "theme" and don't take up much vertical screen space), widgets from dark.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:19PM
Removing the Escape key would be a dumb move. It's a useful key that comes in quite handy depending on the program you are using. I would be avoiding any keyboard that replaces my escape key like the plague. It would be more likely to skip buying a Toshiba, if they made such a dumb move. Not that Toshiba or a laptop in general is on my list of things to buy. I would however recommend against a Toshiba for my workplace. Which could potentially be a small loss for Toshiba of about 10 to 20 laptops.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"