Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Key bored

The qwerty keyboard is an unwelcome guest in the digital age, but exciting new technologies could soon spell its end. David Mattin investigates the new office revolution

Roll the clocks back 140 years, and imagine your working life. You travel to the office in a horse and carriage. Need to contact a client? Write a telegram. Oh, and if you’re the last to leave, don’t forget to extinguish the gas lamps.

It’s a world unrecognisable to us in 2007, but one part of it stubbornly remains: the traditional qwerty keyboard, designed in 1868, 11 years before Thomas Edison invented the electric lightbulb, and 40 years before the Model T Ford.

Counter-intuitive, apparently devoid of logic, and frustrating for the beginner, this throwback to the age of the typewriter has sneaked uninvited into the digital age. But now, at last, cutting-edge technologies could mean its extinction. In fact, keyboards of any kind might soon be gone for good, and those wrist-wrecking mice too. The next few years, say tech insiders, will herald radical changes in the way we interact with our computers.

Take the DX1 Input System, the brainchild of California-based Ergodex (ergodex.com). The DX1 allows for fully customisable key layouts. It consists of a blank tablet and 25 adhesive rubber keys that you can stick anywhere on the pad, and take off again, at will. Once the keys are attached to the pad, which is connected to your PC via a USB cable, they become active.

“These keys are like blank tapes,” says Ergodex software architect Pankaj Garg. “You can programme them to be whatever you want them to be.”

Alternatively, you might try the I-Tech Virtual Laser Keyboard (www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com). This clever little box – about the size of a mobile telephone – uses infrared light to project a crisp red keyboard onto your desk or any other flat surface. It detects your fingers touching the key locations and then sends the results to your PC, PDA, or mobile.

If speed is a problem, take a look at the ingenious Das Keyboard (www.daskeyboard.com), a qwerty keyboard with one crucial difference: it’s completely blank. Inventor Daniel Guermeur, a US computer programmer, says blank keys encourage slow typists to stop looking at the keyboard – which is what, he says, slows them down – and instead unconsciously learn the position of each key, just like a touch-typist.

The near future, though, could see us finally dispense with the keyboard and mouse altogether as speech recognition technology makes its way to an office near you.

“There are software programmes out there that enable you to dictate into Microsoft Word, operate Windows, and send emails, all by voice,” says David Bradshaw, principal software analyst at research firm Ovum, and a voice recognition expert.

The leading example is Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 (nuance.co.uk). The makers say their software can understand the spoken word at 120 words per minute – three times faster than the average person’s typing speed. “Dragon does, in theory, almost dispense with the need for a keyboard and mouse entirely, but currently these programmes aren’t brilliant at recognising all types of voice,” says Bradshaw. “You have to train them, and then talk in a consistent tone and at a consistent speed. It’s a whole new way of working.”

The future, though, could bring a new kind of speech recognition. “Currently, this software still operates by storing a huge list of words, and making a probabilistic decision about which one you just said,” explains Bradshaw. “In the next 10 to 20 years it’s possible we’ll see real qualitative change, so that speech recognition becomes much more intelligent, more able to understand context. Then it will be a bit more like having a conversation with your PC.”

If that all seems too far away, you might prefer to wait for the arrival of a keyboard that is already an object of lust among tech geeks. Bloggers went crazy for Russian firm Art.Lebedev Studio’s Optimus keyboard (artlebedev.com) when the prototype was showcased on tech website Slashdot in July 2005. Each key on the Optimus is an individual 32×32 pixel colour OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen, meaning the keyboard can be programmed to display, say, Arabic characters. “Every key has the display ability of a monitor,” explains company director Artemy Lebedev, “so the possibilities are limitless.”

But when dreaming of our keyboard future, why remain wedded to the next few decades? What if you could operate your PC just by thinking about it? It could be closer than you think.

At Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems in Massachusetts, scientists have implanted microchips the size of an aspirin tablet into the brains of patients, allowing them to communicate with computers by thought power alone.

Currently, this technology – called BrainGate – is being used to help the severely disabled. “We have four patients implanted so far,” says Dr John Donoghue, chief scientific officer at Cyberkinetics, “including a woman who cannot speak or move. By thinking about moving her arm she is able to move, instead, an arrow on our computer screen. In this way she can point to letters on a keyboard and can type at around 15 words per minute.”

Some people think similar technology will one day allow all of us to do the same, and more. In 2005 Sony took out a patent on a game system that uses pulsed ultrasonic signals to beam sensory experiences such as smells, sounds and images direct to the brain. A top scientist at the Pentagon, Stu Wolf, says that within 20 years microchips that can read brainwaves will be worn in headbands; you’ll write reports, send emails and play games just by thinking about it.

Une ancienne touche

Cent quarante ans après son invention, on peut enfin écrire le mot ‘fin’ sur le clavier AZERTY. Grâce aux nouvelles technologies, la prochaine révolution bureautique est en marche.

Le système pack DX1 se compose d’une tablette de 25 touches adhésives en caoutchouc à répartir soi-même selon ses désirs ergonomiques, elles se fixent n’importe où et se retirent aussi facilement.

Si vous souhaitez définitivement en finir avec le clavier, essayez le nouveau clavier Laser Virtuel iTech. Sa lumière infrarouge projette un clavier lumineux grandeur nature sur votre bureau, et grâce à sa technologie de détection, il repère le mouvement de vos doigts et envoie le résultat vers votre PC, votre PDA, ou votre téléphone mobile via une connexion sans fil Bluetooth.

Toutefois, le futur proche pourrait nous dispenser une fois pour toutes du clavier et de la souris. Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 est un programme de reconnaissance vocale qui peut convertir les paroles en texte au rythme de 120 mots à la minute.

Si cela paraît encore lointain, plus proche de nous sera le génial clavier Optimus d’Art. Lebedev. Sur chaque touche, un petit écran individuel en couleur peut être configuré avec une image de son choix, des caractères arabes, par exemple ou le Monde de Warcraft.

Mais la révolution ne s’arrête pas là. Des scientifiques ont implanté des microchips dans le cerveau de leurs patients, leur permettant de communiquer avec des ordinateurs par la seule puissance de leur pensée. En 2005 Sony a breveté un système de jeu qui utilise des signaux émis à intervalle régulier, sous forme d’ultrasons, pour envoyer directement au cerveau des sensations comme des odeurs, des sons et des images. Ces avancées relégueront le clavier et la souris au musée, à côté du vélocipède (penny farthing) et du rouet.

Delete toetsenbord

140 jaar na de uitvinding ervan zouden nieuwe technologieën het einde van het gewone toetsenbord kunnen inluiden. Hier komt de nieuwe kantoorrevolutie! Het DX1-invoersysteem bestaat uit een blanco tablet met 25 zelfklevende rubberen toetsen die je naar eigen goeddunken plaatst en herplaatst.

Definitief komaf maken met tastbare toetsenborden? Dan is het iTech Virtual Laser Keyboard iets voor jou. Via infrarood wordt een helderrood toetsenbord op je bureau geprojecteerd. Detectietechnologie gaat na welke toetsen je vingers virtueel aanraken, en stuurt de gegevens via een draadloze bluetoothverbinding naar je pc, PDA of mobiele telefoon.

Misschien behoren muis en toetsenbord weldra definitief tot het verleden. Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 is een spraakherkenningsprogramma dat tot 120 woorden per minuut verwerkt.

Voor wie dat nog te veraf ligt, is er het fraaie Optimus-toetsenbord van de Russische designstudio Art. Lebedev. Elke toets is een individueel kleurenscherm dat Arabische lettertekens kan weergeven, maar ook de toetsen van World of Warcraft en andere games.

Maar het gaat nóg verder: wetenschappers plantten microchips in de hersenen van proefpersonen in, waardoor ze via loutere denkkracht met een computer kunnen communiceren. In 2005 nam Sony een patent op een gamesysteem dat ultrasoonsignalen gebruikt om zintuiglijke waarnemingen zoals geuren, geluiden en beelden rechtstreeks naar de hersenen te sturen. En het toetsenbord en de muis definitief naar het museum zal sturen…

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