Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Microsoft's man in charge of predicting the future has forecast the slow death of the Qwerty keyboard — with facial tracking, voice and gesture recognition taking over. Dave Coplin, the technology giant's chief envisioning officer, said it was bizarre that 21st-century workers still relied on typing technology invented in the 19th century. He added that while there have been huge leaps in technology, often the workplace had not caught up.
"We have these amazing computers that we essentially use like we're still Victorians. The Qwerty keyboard is a great example of an old design being brought forward to modern day. We've not really evolved. We still use this sub-optimal design.
"We're looking at technologies now like voice and gesture recognition, and facial tracking that may make the keyboard redundant," he added.
"We think that computers in the not-too-distant future will be able to understand all of those things and infer on my behalf my intent, meaning and objective that I'm trying to do."
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday October 08 2016, @04:33PM
well I had one of those "touchstream" (name?) with the mouse/keyboard combination - fantastic for avoiding CT
Of course, Apple bought them up took the keyboard off the market, and instead released the magic mouse/trackpad(?)
I bought 2 of them immediately - they are bluetooth, run under linux using synaptics, and if you are adventurous you can use 2 to replace touchstream by gluing on labels.
still the trackpad is preferable to a mouse, since it allows one handed browsing etc...
my magic combo I recommend is using mousekeys right hand and mouse left hand - spread the load ;-)
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:08PM
I used to have a Thinkpad and I wish those little joystick buttons would become more popular. It's really handy once you get used to it, and I pretty much immediately disabled the trackpad as it has the typical problem of reacting to the wrist and heels of the hands.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:54PM
the apple "magic mouse" (or whatever marketing calls it) doesn't do that - I am pretty sure they stopped selling them for being too useful...
But seriously, the keyless pad stops carpal injury by drastically reducing the force required to strike a key.
I've used those thinkpad's and the nipple is not a bad idea - i think the palm/wrist problem has been solved by synaptics this mouse has none of it.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday October 08 2016, @10:07PM
They may have fixed it, but I haven't had a laptop in quite a while. The only fix I've seen that actually works is disabling it automatically whenever there's a mouse plugged in the way that Apple does.