Invisible Keyboard

Many people are becoming touch typists even tough they had no formal typing training. I've noticed that it's rare to see people hunting for keys these days - these are the users that the invisible would be best suited for.

The invisible keyboard would be a set of electronic caps or pads coveing the tips of your fingers. The most critical part of touch typing is tactile feedback. The feedback would be provided to your fingertips through the caps - making your fingers feel like they were moving over a keyboard based on your finger's location. Basically you could feel all the bumps of the keyboard with your fingers even though there was no keyboard in sight - all the info would be projected to your fingers based on their location in space. You would also get the sensation of pressing the key and releasing it. A sensor would detect your finger movements and translate them into key touches while providing you with the appropriate feedback.

Of course this will never be as efficient as a regular keyboard but it could have some very interesting applications. You could literarly type in mid air or on any flat or sloped surface (for greater comfort). No more fiddling with a stylus, no more strange and inneficient cell phone style input methods. Just let your fingers do the talking.

The down side would be another strange sight in the streets. Not only would you see people people apparently talking to themselves but their fingers would be twitching at an erie rate of 60 wpm.

Note that there is a similar idea where the keyboard is esentially a flat electronic sheet that you can roll up... the disadvantage of the roll up keyboard is that you can't really feel the keys. With invisible keyboard you would feel the keys + you would save even more space. As users got comfortable using this technology, it would quickly develop into form of sign language that could be used as computer input.