New Computer. Hooray.

Sput · Wed 25 Oct, 2006 12.47

Gavin Scott wrote:I'd love one of those lcd keyboard we saw here some months ago - but I can't find them anywhere.

They launched a small one but it was allegedly rubbish.

cdd · Thu 26 Oct, 2006 10.55

There is also a rather fun Projection Keyboard, which tracks your finger movements. You project the keyboard onto a desk etc., and type on that. I've used one and it's not 100% reliable, but it's the sort of thing you can get used to (e.g. you have to type s l o w e r one finger at a time, and keep your fingers off the keys). Mainly designed for PDAs and the like.

Gavin Scott · Thu 26 Oct, 2006 11.52

Would it surprise anyone to know I haven't taken the thing out of its box yet? No one in my office beleives me.

cdd · Thu 26 Oct, 2006 12.04

Incidentially, I also thought the idea of an LCD keyboard (where each key is a standalone display) could eliminate sholder surfing at ATMs. Each number key would have that film which makes it extremely difficult to read from an angle other than straight-on and the display would be positioned down into the key a bit, and the numbers would be assigned to the keys randomly.

MarkN · Thu 26 Oct, 2006 16.35

cdd wrote:Incidentially, I also thought the idea of an LCD keyboard (where each key is a standalone display) could eliminate sholder surfing at ATMs. Each number key would have that film which makes it extremely difficult to read from an angle other than straight-on and the display would be positioned down into the key a bit, and the numbers would be assigned to the keys randomly.

What about people with sight problems?

cdd · Thu 26 Oct, 2006 16.51

MarkN wrote:
cdd wrote:Incidentially, I also thought the idea of an LCD keyboard (where each key is a standalone display) could eliminate sholder surfing at ATMs. Each number key would have that film which makes it extremely difficult to read from an angle other than straight-on and the display would be positioned down into the key a bit, and the numbers would be assigned to the keys randomly.
What about people with sight problems?

Hmm... how do the visually impaired use ATMs with the current system, can you plug headphones in and use voice prompts?

Pete · Thu 26 Oct, 2006 18.50

indeed - whilst 1-9 are always in the same place, the buttons on the screen move around at random. different machines/banks have different layouts

Philip Cobbold · Thu 26 Oct, 2006 23.12

Nick Harvey wrote:I'm interested in that comment, Philip.

Like me, you spend quite a bit of time writing, bashing the old keyboard.

Don't you find the tiny keyboard on a laptop difficult, compared with a full sized one?

Or do you just get used to it in time?

I must say I did find the laptop keyboard a bit difficult to get used to when I first got it, although it's not quite as bad now I've got used to it. But I still do prefer using a full sized one, and wouldn't consider doing anything which required a huge amount of typing on the laptop.