How about gloves (maybe not full gloves, could just be finger sleeves) with little stylus nib type nubbins in the finger-tips, in combination with a touch sensitive pad. That should give the accuracy of a pen tablet (rather than crappy finger touch sensitivity), with 10 finger multitouch, and the keyboard integrated. (It could probably be customised for the user by simply having them to type and automatically adjusting key positions for where they found most natural, with a recenter button / combo or something.) Of course people would have to actually learn where all the keys were (or set up their own profile, maybe stored in the gloves so you could take it around with you). Also there probably isn't much use for 10 finger multitouch (unless you take keyboards a step further and have multiple touches for a letter (or syllable even) - maybe someone could come up with something much faster than qwerty, even if it took more effort to learn).

Well, I suspect we'll be using keyboards and mice for a while yet.

Maybe we'll use the technology of "It" depicted in South Park.

Other than direct brain control it's hard to see any revolution coming. Typing has been around for decades, if not centuries and touch-pads don't really change that fundamentally anyhow, even if you could properly solve touch-typing on a flat surface (I'm 100% certain it's possible).

Voice control is good for dictation but not anything technical or skilled like programming or 3D modelling... "forward slash forward slash this is a comment newline open brace int x equals 5..."

The problem with multiple key presses at a time for a given character is that while it can be far faster to type/use fewer keys, is that they are far harder to learn. We already have such systems in place, but they are rarely use despite being more efficient. Hardly anyone uses them because barely anyone knows how to type in them.

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Original post by Talroth The problem with multiple key presses at a time for a given character is that while it can be far faster to type/use fewer keys, is that they are far harder to learn. We already have such systems in place, but they are rarely use despite being more efficient. Hardly anyone uses them because barely anyone knows how to type in them.

Learning to use a tool vs. keeping up with pace of change is mostly a zero sum game. Overall trends are going away from repetitive tool application, such tasks can be automated.


With ubiquity of online identity and connectivity in general, one reasonable direction is personal customization.

Imagine not learning QWERTY. When someone first encounters touch input, they operate it, and computer adapts. The on screen "keyboard" doesn't have a notion of key placement, their function or form. As these people go through life, any time they encounter computer input, their own concept of keyboard is used. Someone who uses touch typing has completely different layout than someone who types with two fingers. A German would use different keys due to umlauts that someone using English wouldn't.

This concept today is still somewhat hard to imagine. But qwerty is just as arbitrary as Dvorak. And as soon as one deals with I18N, these layouts get bastardized to fit various keys.

And for a programmer, F7, CTRL-F5 or .. might have a prominent place in the layout.

An example.

This would be probably the biggest leap in input, something that fully adapts to user. And as RSI starts to kick in, you naturally adapt position of wrists, and keyboard adapts to how you change the typing. Because existing concept of keyboard layout, regardless of form, really doesn't make all that much sense. Look at other tool use - hammers, scissors, knife, pencils - everyone has their unique way of using them. And they are trivial to complexity of keyboards.

Or, at very least, start with QWERTY or some basic keys, then adapt from there. The blindtype is a step into this direction.

But I feel that for an increasing number of tasks, concept of keyboard will start becoming obsolete in favor of high-level predictive interfaces.

Quote bregma "Oh, and pens aren't the same as touch. Pens are good for graphics input but terrible for most UI work. What you need for every day interaction is multitouch like this baby. Once you try that, it's hard to go back to a mouse."

I know, which is why right from the start I mentioned that in the future there is no one size fit all for input device. you just need to see what you spent your time on most, and get the input devices that save the time. I used to draw and use hand held scanner black and white (oh, those times :-) ), flat bed, and then tiny graphics tablet. i tried my best, but it just quite hard really. maybe due to size (tiny). and of course, based on this year computer art magazine (i think) that review cintiq, i'm not the only person that have problem translating hand gesture to screen position (then again maybe i need to practice more, like mouse). but cintiq solves the problem, of couruse it's a new techhnology and have issues, but it will be improved upon.

it just that a person doesn't have to hate input devices because it doesn't fit them. AFAIK, fast food chain uses touch screen for input devices, so is a lot of POS these days.

I'm kind of like that 3M monitor, but doesn't fit in my working pipeline.

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Original post by szecs Quote: Original post by Silvermyst Eye tracking to replace the mouse? No thanks. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

Use your gaze as the mouse pointer, and the keyboard as the mouse buttons. I'd love to be able to keep my hands on my keyboard at all times. I have a feeling that specialized contact lenses will be added to the mix at some point to reduce the error rate.

I absolutely HATE touchscreens. And I've always thought it was ridiculous that any company tried to push them as the "input method of the future." Honestly. How tiring is it to use one of those for hours? No thanks.

No I've had a few ideas for future input schemes and I'm fairly certain at least a couple of them will be at least tried if not established as the new standard someday.

-hand input. controls on the tips of all your fingers. then you operate them by touching the ends of fingers to thumbs, thumbs to palm, etc. you could touch the underside of thumb, tip of the thumb, or the the base of the thumb's nail. these are some of the quickest, simplest, most tactilely natural touches you could do with your hand. it basically allows 12 finger -> thumb controls per hand plus thumb-> palm for each hand. 169 controls if you use both hands at the same time. plus there are thousands of variations on this theme for potential improvements.

-projected keyboard and touchpad. basically a device spits out a light projection of a keyboard/touchpad onto any smooth flat surface and gauges which keys you're pressing by the interference of reflection caused by your hands touching the projected keys.

-digital neural interface. not as hard as you might think. there is already technology in place to gauge simple yes/no from people's brain activity. with MRI technology improving in resolution and decreasing in cost, this could be a reality. not to mention adding in eye movements and focus degrees to the mix. you could have a wider and finer range of input without moving any muscle but your eyes than we ever could using our hands on a keyboard and mouse.

In the future

... computers will be operated using a thinking cap.

The future of PC input that I actually want:

A split keyboard with a track ball in the middle!