News Pianist promises to usurp QWERTY keyboards

With my Dvorak set up at home, at least one of my games automatically adjusted to ",AOE"
I have a second keyboard set to QWERTY for those that don't... I just have to remember to change the computer language before firing up the game. I'll get around to re-mapping the keys in game eventually...

 

Well... this won't gonna works.

 

Anyone have a look at minuum yet?

http://minuum.com/

I am trying it out now, takes some getting used to but for someone who doesn't text a lot (me) I found that I can type faster...

 

Just wanted to say:

ursurp - nice!

TTY - I read as titty.

As NaThRo said, it's not like there aren't more efficient alternatives already out there. In fact it's not the English market that needs a new keyboard: Chinese does. Typing in Chinese is so wholly unnatural on a 'normal' keyboard.

 

Pshh, not looking for a pic of some PRS guitar (nice maple, too bad it's got that purple finish on it - wood that beautiful should be left natural).

Come on, man, make with the video of you typing on a piano!

(And what I see in my mind is a dude sitting at a piano keyboard, swaying as he types like my mom did playing Fur Elise when I was a kid).

On-topic, though, this is going nowhere. In my younger years, I was near 60wpm and never had any real training. It was that way trying to keep up in the old chat rooms. I don't think saving 1.5 seconds now banging out an email at the office will make much difference. I would guess that doubling your typing efficiency now would be niche - transcriptionists come to mind. Maybe authors hoping to get their thoughts down more quickly (I can type faster than I can talk, but they're both way the hell slower than my brain).

Reminds me of a lady I knew that could touch-type at 70-80 and she took dictation...but it only mattered after the fact. Her very old-skool boss insisted she take everything down shorthand. Now you want to talk niche - how many of you know what I'm talking about?

 

oh, and no numpad? Dealbreaker - I 10-key all day long and I want to punch the people that have a numpad and don't use it, pecking with their index fingers on the top row.

 

I quite like the idea and am not opposed to something taking the crown from QWERTY.

Should it make communication more efficent, I can only see it as a bonus.

I think the key really is integration. Before (or if at all) we see full size desktop keyboards being manufactured, it will most likely be used on other devices first.

 

Unlikely. "Other devices" (laptops, phones) could fail very hard just because of this keyboard - standalone full size desktop keyboard is the ideal "test market" for a new keyboard layout.

 

LOL... You prefer natural finish? Chipboard dung look very nice without a purple coat.

I did have some typing lessons at college many years ago. It was boring as hell. I didn't apply what I was taught and so just typed with a few fingers. I have no need to be able to type fast. For music it's a different story. 170bpm playing and beyond.

 

Who said it had to be implemented in the traditional fashion via hardware?

It could just be an app created.

 

And uhm, what use would be there for that ? Phones have far more efficient methods than this keyboard.

 

Getting there.

Ok, flip that around; are you saying mobiles/tablets are more efficient than a QWERTY keyboard?

 

No. But just look at that proposal, it is unusable in portrait mode. Ok, it could be a solution for landscape mode - but :
1) why would anyone will create a keyboard for just one language ?
2) the main reason for speed increase is already there on mobile devices - it's called T9 and XT9. Why would they create a special key for 24 most commonly words, when you can just use predictive text for your whole vocabulary, or just type abbreviations for whole chuncks of text ? Simply put, this keyboard would perform worse than the solutions already found on the mobile devices. But hey, be my guest, create such an keyboard app for Android and let fast typist try it out...

 

Many years ago I tried Dvorak and I found it easier to learn and nicer to use but the switch when I had to use Qwerty was a killer. However, I have read a few articles saying the whole inferiority of Qwerty is vastly overblown and possibly just a myth.
Top "qwerty typewriter myth" result: http://www.economist.com/node/196071

Spoiler

Still, I did like Dvorak better when I tried it.

 

Used Dvorak quite a bit and found it easier and quicker but then started to help people with computer problems and was using multiple shared computers at work and switching between 2 systems became a pain and slowed things down so just conformed. So Unless you can replace 60% of all systems bound to fail.

 

The one thing I do like about this keyboard is that it may be possible to type full words while still have the other hand on the mouse, removing the need to switch between the two devices.