QWERTY AND THE MODERN KEYBOARD
QWERTY keyboards have been around since the 1800s. While the original design was done simply to prevent the arms of the typewriter from colliding, dividing vowels and certain consonants is space has some advantages. Its general functionality and the fact that good typists who have become accustomed to QWERTY would find it difficult to change their ways, no new systems of keyboard input have are widely used (apart from small modifications such as the QWERTZ and AZERTY).
NEED FOR SPEED
Highly skilled and practiced typists can rattle of words at an extremely high speed on a QWERTY keyboard, reaching speeds of greater than 60 words-per-minute. This means that a good typist can type approximately one word every second. There are two reasons why this level of speed is possible with a physical keyboard. First, skilled typists can use all 8 fingers to type and their thumbs to hit the spacebar. Second, skilled typists have memorized the positions of all of the keys on the keyboard. Without having to search for each key, the skilled typist is able to focus on reading the text on-screen. Enter the slow end of the spectrum, "hunt-and-peck" typists that have to continually search for each key and use only their two index fingers to press keys. Without the capacity to focus only the text output, the rate of typing of slow typists can drop below 30 words-per-minute, or one word every two seconds. For people who search for each key before they press it, the QWERTY key configuration really holds no value. In fact, it is likely that having the characters in alphabetical order might actually increase the speed of such typists.
But, there are a few reasons that a new keyboard input system is needed...
RISE OF THE TOUCHSCREEN
The great equalizer in terms of typing speed, perhaps, has been the virtual touchscreen keyboard on smartphones and tablets. Virtual keyboards have turned everyone a hunt-and-peck typist... Making matters worse, the virtual keyboard can take up nearly half of the screen and force you to "switch" keyboards whenever you need capital letters, numbers, or special characters.
TXTING TRUNCATION
A new language has evolved in order to save on typing all of the letters in a word by replacing them with numbers or special characters. Yes, using the two-thumb system on a physical cell phone keyboard (or pressing repeatedly on a 9-button numeric pad) might make u a bad spellr. Unfortunately, the benefit of truncation for txting is lost as using 4 as "for" or 2 for "to" is actually slower and more difficult to input with a virtual keyboard because of the keyboard switches.
(AUTO)COMPLETE OVERLOAD
A solution to the speed problem is the autocomplete function that "guesses" what you're about to type and fills in the word for you. For the most part, autocomplete is extremely functional, barring the times where words are replaced in error, which can lead to some embarrassing moments (for example, autocomplete tends to think that Tony should be "Tiny"). There are a growing number of keyboard inputs that are designed to make life easier for the virtual keyboard user by leveraging autocomplete to the max. This is good for most things, but the autocomplete becomes a burden if you have proper names, usernames, and passwords to enter.
SMARTWATCHES: INPUT OPTIONS NEEDED
The number of smartwatches on the market continues to grow. But, there's one small problem. These devices are great for reading messages, but, there's no way to use them as input devices. As the IoT (Internet of Things) continues to grow, the smartwatch could be "central control system." Think about this, the smartwatch (which we are more likely to wear at all times) could be used to control your Blu-ray player, Apple/Amazon TV, home security system, and thermostat, etc. Imagine being able to send texts while you're watching a movie on your Blu-ray player, or even better, not having to scroll across a massive QWERTY keyboard on your big screen TV with your remote control to enter your username and password, rife with numbers and special characters...
SNEAK PEEK OF OUR SOLUTION
To solve all of the aforementioned problems, we have developed a space-saving system that uses a two-stage input process. By combining button presses and swiping movements, we have made a six-button input system into a fully functional keyboard. Here's a quick video demo.
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