When iPhone defeated BlackBerry as the smartphone form factor of the future, it did so by ditching physical keyboards for one giant touch screen. And ultimately that was probably for the best. But I think purely virtual keyboards are something we all just got used to as oppose to fully enjoy. That’s why tech companies keep putting out all these features like predictive text and haptic feedback to make up for the inherent imprecision of these typing tools.
The future of phones isn’t physical keyboards. However, at CES 2020, Samsung is betting that the future of phones could be no keyboards at all. SelfieType is an invisible mobile keyboard.
SelfieType is a very early experimental demo, the kind of thing CES is made for, developed by Samsung’s wacky C-Lab program. And this thing does look pretty experimental in action. Users prop up their phone and type on nothing at all in front of the screen. It looks like they’re pretending to use a keyboard, or losing their mind in the same way Bluetooth headsets make us look like we’re yelling at no one.
But just because we can’t see the SelfieType keyboard doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The phone uses its camera to track your fingers, and using some AI, it can translate those movements into actual keystrokes. It reminds of us novelty laser printers we recommended in gift guides for tech lovers years ago.
As neat as this sounds though, even if it works it doesn’t look like it can fully replace the need for a physical keyboard or even a touchscreen keyboard. We’ll have to see what happens if this ever goes from CES fever dream to real Samsung Galaxy bullet point.
More on Geek.com:
- Charmin Showcases Toilet Tech at CES 2020
- What to Expect at CES 2020
- Samsung Showcases Infinity TVs, Rotating TVs, Extremely Curved Gaming Monitors at CES 2020
from Geek.com https://ift.tt/2tzILhs
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment