Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'

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Tablet Dactyls

Miniature styluses for each finger

(+3, -1)

[vote for,
against]

I just bought a convertible notebook-tablet PC, and while it's great for writing notes and diagrams in slate form, it is akward to draw on it if you want to use the keyboard as well. (That is, use the stylus in notebook mode.) Windows XP provides an onscreen keyboard for tapping with your pen, but you're still limited with only one stylus.

What I'm envisioning is some kind of exo-skeletonish that slips over the knuckle ridge on the non-writing hand. Each of the four fingers is equipped with a point to allow the user to input data on the screen via typing. It's obviously not as fast as using a keyboard, but it would quadruple the speed of using a regular stylus.

—	Cuit_au_Four, May 20 2007

the other dactyls http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Meter_(poetry)
[pertinax, May 21 2007]

(?) could you use these? http://www.eaglemus...=4163&ProcessType=1
[xandram, May 21 2007]

Multi-Touch Interface http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/
Research is on-going... [neutrinos_shadow, May 22 2007]

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I like the name - so [+]

—	xenzag, May 20 2007

I've never used a tablet-style thing, so excuse my ignorance. Is the problem that the stylus has to be conductive (or insulating, or something), or is it just that fingers are too big and clumsy to work on a small tablet?

—	MaxwellBuchanan, May 20 2007

I like this idea, but I'm wishing you'd called it something else, so as to set up a satisfying scansion joke; 'dactylic interface' almost works, but you have to pretend that 'face' is a short syllable.

—	pertinax, May 21 2007

I think you mean 'styli'.

—	BJS, May 22 2007

I would worry about strain injuries after awhile from tapping at a solid object with no built-in spring.

Why not just use ring things to type in air, like that Dilbert cartoon?

—	RayfordSteele, May 22 2007

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