Developed "keyboard of the future" for smartphones and virtual reality

In the open Apple Store and Google Playa whole bunch of different keyboards with an "unprecedented level of ergonomics", "cool features to ensure comfortable work" and other whistles. But the truth is that, despite all these tricks, the keyboard always stays with the QWERTY layout invented a couple of centuries ago. It is, without a doubt, convenient. But it can also be improved, as researchers from the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) tried to do. They managed to create a special interface that puts the keyboard literally at your fingertips.

What does the new keyboard look like?

The short answer is no way. Yes, I-Keyboard (namely the so-called development) is invisible, which maximizes the usable space on the screens on mobile devices. Users can view the contents of the application in full screen mode and type text simultaneously. Moreover, I-Keyboard does not have a predefined layout, shape or size of keys. Users can start typing anywhere at any angle and the I-Keyboard will perfectly understand what is required of it.

How does the new keyboard work?

According to the authors of the work, I-Keyboard worksbased on the predictive algorithm of artificial intelligence. That is, to put it simply, the AI ​​algorithm tries to predict what you want to type and “adjusts” the keyboard for you in a special way.

See also: How the keyboard works.

If we talk about the familiar to us screenkeyboards, the main problem is that it is simply impossible to constantly get right on the keys that are tightly bound to a specific place in the program interface. I-Keyboard instead of accurately determining the position of fingers and pressing locations calculates what you are trying to do, and constantly adjusts the invisible keyboard to match what you want to do. At the same time, so to speak, such a keyboard does not have a “physical embodiment”. Typing is necessary to perform the method of blind typing.

The development is only at the initial stage, butnow pressing is recognized correctly in 95.8% of cases. The main problem at the moment is the low speed of work. Only 45 taps per minute, which is about 10 times slower than when typing ten fingers blindly. Now we want to improve these indicators, say Korean researchers.

I-Keyboard is also fully capable of working invirtual and augmented reality environment. There, of course, in theory it will be possible to project the keyboard onto any flat surface. Moreover, the authors are so confident in their development that they consider it to be a full-fledged replacement for physical keyboards, which it will eventually replace.

It all sounds very beautiful, but it remains alonemoment: not all users can type without looking at the keyboard. And not everyone knows by heart the location of all the buttons. Sometimes we all look at the keys during operation, so the value of the statement about replacing the usual keyboard, in our opinion, is very doubtful.

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