Portable computers, from games machines to smartphones, are now much more hands-on thanks to the proliferation of touchscreen technology. But touchscreens suffer from a debilitating problem: touching them stops you being able to see all the action.
For some time researchers have suggested the answer to this so-called 鈥渙cclusion problem鈥� is to put controls on the back of the device, but now there are signs that sophisticated rear-mounted controls may be inching towards commercial reality. Last week, gaming website reported that some who have seen the next version of Sony鈥檚 PSP portable console say it will sport touch controls on its back.
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Sony has refused to be drawn on the rumours, but if they prove correct, it would not be the first tech firm to explore the idea. 快猫短视频 reported in 2007 on work at Microsoft and Mitsubishi research labs to create LucidTouch, a large, transparent hand-held LCD device with touch-sensitive panels on the rear. Subsequent devices such as the NanoTouch have demonstrated that people can use rear-mounted sensors accurately, even if they can鈥檛 see their fingers.
Those prototype gadgets featured relatively simple rear-facing controls. But many of us are so familiar with full keyboards that it may be practical to put them on the rear of hand-held devices.
Touch typing
, a computer interface researcher based at Microsoft Research labs in Cambridge, UK, will present a paper at next month鈥檚 conference in Lisbon, Portugal, showing how LucidTouch鈥檚 panel sensors have evolved into a mobile device with a qwerty keyboard on the rear.
RearType supports 10-fingered touch typing. There are two rows of four buttons on the front for thumbs; the qwerty keyboard is split in two, as on a split ergonomic keyboard, with each half rotated through 90 degrees. The thumb-controlled front-facing buttons include frequently used keys including shift, delete and enter (see photos, right).
When a key is pressed, a virtual keyboard appears the right way round on the device鈥檚 screen, highlighting which key has been pressed.
To test the devices, Scott and his colleagues advertised for volunteers to take part in a typing trial. They were looking for so-called finger typists 鈥� people with a moderate ability to type without looking at the keyboard. After an hour鈥檚 tuition the 12 volunteers had an average speed of 15 words per minute 鈥� far lower than their speeds on a traditional keyboard, but on a par with the sorts of speed users manage with a touchscreen keyboard. With some adjustments to the keyboard layout to make it easier to reach all the keys, the researchers think that typing speeds will increase.
Reference: Scott鈥檚 team鈥檚 paper is (PDF)
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