'Let there be light': keyboard is a shining innovation

Desktops, dinner tables, briefcases and practically any other flat surface will soon be turned into fully-functioning keyboards in a move which promises to take the pain out of devices such as PDAs and mobile phones where a full-size keyboard would be as useful as it would previously have been cumbersome.

US start-up Canesta will release chipsets next year that will beam a keyboard, comprised of light, onto any flat surface.

Carlo Tomasi, chief technical officer of Canesta, said Japanese giant NEC and a North American manufacturer are already working on how to incorporate the Canesta chipset into mobile phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) for a release in late 2004.

The keyboard, on display in the Emerging Technologies exhibit at Siggraph, is aimed largely at improving one of the major problems with small, portable computing devices: they're too small for fingers. Most smart phones and PDAs come with truncated keypads or tiny keyboards. Some accessory manufacturers have come out with foldable keyboards that can be used with Palm handhelds, but these haven't exactly taken the handheld market by storm.

The Canesta keyboard essentially gets rid of the hardware part of the equation. The chipset consists of three basic parts: a light source that beams a blanket of infrared energy onto a surface, a sensor that tracks finger movements, and a pattern projector that displays an image of a Qwerty keyboard in red.

The sensor, the key part of the equation, pinpoints where the light is reflected. It then transmits data about where reflective surfaces (the back of your fingers) move and stop. The processor then translates this into keystrokes.

At least two other companies - Virtual Devices and Developer VKB - have announced "projection keyboards" of the kind Canesta is displaying. Another company, Sweden's Senseboard Technologies, has developed a virtual keyboard that tracks finger movements by way of plastic devices worn on the hands.

Like voice-recognition systems, the Canesta keyboard takes some effort to master. Users mostly have to be careful to make very deliberate movements and to keep the typing area free of clutter.

"In about five to 10 minutes most people get the hang of it," Tomasi said.

Canesta is also looking at other ways to implement its technology. Similar light-and-sensor systems could be used to warn drivers about cars in their 'blind spot' or objects approaching from the side.

Michael Kanellos writes for News.com