Valuable Virtual Input
Solution providers should become familiar with this laser technology as it emerges, because it may become a popular human-device interface moving forward.
Phoenix-based iBiz's first product, due out in about a month, is a virtual keyboard targeted mainly for use with PDAs. It's a small unit,about the size of a travel-size shaving-cream can,and projects the image of a keyboard onto any surface on which it's placed. An infrared emitter/detector pair in the unit tracks the position and height of fingertip strokes as they tap the surface.
The approach has numerous advantages: It is more portable and comfortable than the impish equivalents for PDAs. There are no moving parts, reducing any downtime due to equipment failure for critical systems to an absolute minimum. Also, gravity and size are no longer design concerns for keyboard placement,a keyboard could be moved anywhere from a desktop to a wall to the undercarriage of a vehicle being serviced.
A virtual keyboard could be built into a TabletPC, transforming it into a convertible tablet without adding weight. Consoles in the rooms of a digital home could feature virtual keyboards that shut off automatically to minimize the aesthetic impact of the consoles.
If the technology can be made small enough, it could find its way into devices that could benefit from a keyboard but cannot accommodate the size of the mechanics,cell phones, for example.
While the technology will be used for keyboards in the near future, the technology is suitable as a pointing-device replacement, too. It would be an ideal replacement for a trackpad, for example.
What's more, small-size display technology might be up for grabs. If the projector displays a dynamic GUI screen in addition to a static pattern that mocks a keyboard or trackpad, the whole human interface becomes virtual and usable almost anywhere, and the device size shrinks as the display goes virtual.
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