back to article Mozilla Labs dreams of projected keyboard phone

Mozilla Labs is touting a phone-of-the-future that would project a keyboard onto tabletops and read keystrokes with infrared sensors. With a Friday blog post, Mozilla's research arm unveiled a concept smartphone dubbed Seabird. Cooked by New York-based designer Bill May, it's billed as "an experiment in how users might …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. mafoo

    i can see it now

    "Sorry, the cat walked in front of my computer and my keyboard disappeared."

  2. Anonymous Bastard
    Thumb Down

    I probably won't be the first to point this out

    ...but projected keyboards have been around for a few years already.

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/techies/8193/

    Overall the concept is a combination of existing ideas but I don't think I've seen so many bundled into one nerdgasm like this before.

  3. Peter H. Coffin

    An experiment?

    How long has ThinkGeek been selling these? Five years? Ten?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      out of stock

      They seem to have dropped out of production. I tried to buy one a couple of years ago, but couldn't get one. Maybe they didn't work very well. Maybe they were too expensive. Dunno.

      1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        Played with one owned by a friend

        While it worked, it felt unnatural, and the keys, particularly around the edges, were a bit unreliable.

        It just didn't feel right with no physical keys, and the flatness meant that anybody used to typing got aching hands quite quickly. I never saw him use it much in the following months. It was a clever and an impressive gadget though.

        I found a better solution for sending texts quickly was to link my (then) Nokia phone to my laptop by IR, but that would rather defeat the purpose when using a smartphone. I got a Palm Treo, installed Graffiti, and used that instead. I wish I could use a stylus and Graffiti on my current android phone (I know, both are possible, but Graffiti appears to have been pulled from the Android Market at the moment!)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Recurring dream?

    Didn't Psion have the same dream ten years ago?

    1. Argh

      Maybe...

      Maybe, but Steve Jobs will invent this 5 years from now and it will all be his idea.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Coat

        Re: Maybe...

        Yes, I can just imagine St Jobs walking onto the stage with a Halo™ around his head.

        Little in-joke for the surviving Psion enthusiasts out there...

      2. JimC

        >but Steve Jobs

        Or more precisely Steve Jobs will get it to market in a form that people want to shell out their cash for...

  5. Matt Bradley
    Thumb Up

    Surpirsed this has taken so long

    I'm still waiting for my predicted wristphone which projects the keyboard onto the back of my hand, and the display onto my upper arm, or a nearby wall...

  6. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    They suck...

    I had one of these, and after about 10 minutes of typing an email, my fingertips were in serious pain. There's ZERO shock absorption in your average tabletop.

    Now if they could cross this with the Swype idea, where you just slide your fingers from letter to letter, it might work.

    1. Lionel Baden
      Joke

      with Swype !

      Instructions

      #1 Dont use on rough wooden surface.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Patent...

    ...the design and sue Apple later. They only admit that they not "invent" anything when it's patented...

  8. David Pollard

    "I'd buy this phone ..."

    ... it would be even more fun than an air guitar.

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Only one technological barrier really

    The only thing that is really hindering this kind of pie-in-the-sky dream is the battery. Projecting light may not be all that expensive, electrically speaking, but the kind of holographic display in the picture looks quite energy-intensive to me.

    In any case, it'll certainly put an increased load on an already severely limited power supply. Apparently, average talk time is around 4 hours now (source : http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/8069.html), with a few exceptions.

    4 hours and all you do is talk. Radio is about the cheapest electrical application there is. You need very little power to send and receive. Set up a phone with holographic display and keyboard and you're upping the energy requirement by at least an order of magnitude.

    So that means what ? Today's batteries would last 4 minutes ?

    I don't know, and maybe nobody does, but I am sure of one thing : battery life needs to be dramatically extended before anything like this can give a day's worth of usefulness to the average user.

    1. Brian 6
      Stop

      @Pascal Monett

      " Set up a phone with holographic display and keyboard and you're upping the energy requirement by at least an order of magnitude. ...So that means what ? Today's batteries would last 4 minutes ?" A 2d display of a keyboard is hardly holographic and would use very litlte battery power indeed. Plus the projections only work while it is in the dock and guess what ? The dock can be connected to the mains.....think before u type m8.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Saw this at FOSDEM in 2009

    What amazes me is that there is no phone yet that does this.

    Anyone who has been to the fosdem in 2009 has seen a technology demonstrator of this idea. Really cool. I tought they used the beagleboard for it, a pico projector from TI and that laser keyboard from thinkgeek.

    So the idea works, the tech is there but a commercial phone product has not yet been created....

  11. carup008

    So?

    I really do not see the point....if you are linking your smartphone to a docking station, which has a conventional screen attached to it, might as well go the whole hog and attach, to the same docking station, a real keyboard and real mouse, which would surely be much easier to use than this "virtual" thing.

  12. jake Silver badge

    Maybe I'm confuzled ...

    ""With the benefit of a dock, each projector works independently and delivers laptop levels of efficiency."

    Uh ... This thingie needs a docking station? Shirley a real keyboard (IBM Model M would be my choice ...) would make more sense?

  13. Francis Boyle Silver badge

    I wish I could buy that phone

    because I'm getting heartily sick of black slabs. These days, it's either a black slab, or a black slab with a little bump, or a black slab with a metal frame. I know the point of minimalism is that it's never supposed to go out of fashion but, in this case, I wish it would.

  14. Robert Forsyth

    How about?

    Display build into your sunglasses, perhaps wireless and stereoscopic 3D, and a Dasher input system controlled by the position of your finger in the air in front of you, measured by the phone's camera.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Alas, VR glasses...

      ...their day never came - and it probably won't. VR / augmented reality / glasses displays / etc are limited not by electronics, which get cheaper and cheaper, but by optics, which don't. You're not going to be able to get a $50 display in your sunglasses any more than you'll get a $50 F/2.0 500mm telephoto.

      1. Matt Bradley
        Thumb Down

        VR Glasses

        No. VR glasses' day never came because they make you look a complete twunt.

        For home consoling gaming, they make the whole experience very insular. Whilst this works for the hardcore of bedroom gamers, they don't work for social or casual gaming. They certainly don't work for ANY mobile application.

        I'm sure if anybody thought they could actually SELL the damn things in any serious volume, they'd invest the R&D in finding ways to make it cheaper.

  15. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD

    Ok. fancy new keyboard...

    How much power will it cost, bearing in mind the wonderful endurance smartphones have at the moment?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Maurice Moss

    Did anybody notice the message on the screen from "Maurice Moss" i.e Moss from IT Crowd.

    It was a reference to the FIRE email.

    That made my weekend :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Look again...

      There are also messages from Jen and Roy.

  17. Thomas 4

    You no good punk kids

    I actually did a review of one of these things a couple of years back for allaboutsymbian and if memory serves the device itself is still lurking in the back of the cupboard. Can't remember too much of the detail but the contrast in bright light was very poor. There were also some issues with the sensor picking up keystrokes and missing others but not as bad as you would think. It was a separate device that communicated to the phone via bluetooth but still managed to get a battery life of around 4 hours-ish - don't quote me on that though.

    I think it would be possible to incorporate the technology into phones but it would add a fair bit to the bulk. As other posters have said, the drain *when combined with standard smartphone usage* would be too much for batteries as they stand now.

  18. fLaMePrOoF
    Boffin

    What's new?

    OK, fitting a micro projector, laser keyboard and a decent amount of processing power into a moble phone form factor would be 'future' in terms of scale, but all of the technology is already there, nothing new here...

    http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=laser+keyboard&wrapid=tlif12854931144712&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=ghGfTMnBG8TKswa1n5jmDg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=6&ved=0CEQQsAQwBQ&biw=1259&bih=633

  19. gimbal
    WTF?

    It's a convenient conversation piece, at least

    ...and they didn't even have to invest actual materials into an actual production line, for the thing.

    Maybe it's also a testament to the value of peer review - at least, depending on the community of peers, and the subject under review. Designers proceeding unawares of the prior art to this item, and largely not inclined to actually analyze its design, might think - or, at least, might talk - as if it was the hottest new idea under the sun. I think, it's a waste of time and resources, and I think that some people living the "genius" stereotype probably do have too much free time on their hands - to which, I believe, this design may serve as a nearly tangible case in point.

  20. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    They call them "concepts" for a reason

    Partly to show what *is* available, partly to show it is possible to *integrate* what is available into something that a person could carry.

    Battery life is an issue but the biggest blocks on innovation are (potentially) a lack of funds and a complete lack of imagination.

    Note that *many* design icons are made up of elements seen individually (and possibly a long time before) elsewhere.

    Their iconic status is that they were the first to integrate the idea*

    But yes I think St. Steve will invent this in about 5 years.

    *Note I'm not saying *this* is iconic, merely that because its core bits have been seen elsewhere does not rule it out.

  21. The Indomitable Gall

    Concept phone?

    It looks like concept *artwork* to me. A concept phone would be something I could hold in my hand.

    Give me 25 minutes with a pack of Crayola and a ream of A4 and I'll deliver you loads of "concept phones"....

  22. Randombard

    For work

    As this is a pie in the sky product I am going to make some wild assumptions about its capability.

    When undocked to save power it is in a phone mode and has lower levels of functionality but when docked is just as powerful as a "standard" work laptop.

    so if your a rep you can use one device for all things, the office doesn’t have to buy keyboard mouse and monitor just one device to cover all requirements and you don’t have to carry massive laptop bags everywhere.

    But other then the funky multi function headset nothing here is new..... doesn’t stop me wishing I could get one.

  23. Andrew Garrard

    I have the hardware...

    I bought a Celluon laser-projected keyboard a while back. It works with my WinMo 6 phone, but not terribly well (not least, IIRC it was a bit slow at keeping up with typing speed) and only with beta drivers. I don't think the hardware was ever the problem. Sadly, for some reason, it didn't use the standard bluetooth HID profile - possibly because it was supposed to work as a mouse as well as a keyboard.

    If anyone gets the drivers for these things working on Android, count me interested. No bluetooth keyboard has ever worked well enough on WinMo for it to be worth the effort to me.

  24. XMAN
    FAIL

    Vista

    So apparently its going to run vista. Shoddy video work

  25. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Oh great!

    It will be like typing on a ZX81 keyboard all over again.

    yay(!)

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like