Do you hate touchscreen keyboards with a fiery, burning passion, to the point where you won’t even buy a touchscreen phone if it doesn’t come with a keyboard? Toronto-based startup Whirlscape feels our pain, and are looking to do something about it with their new take on the digital keyboard, Minuum. Minuum originally came out of a University of Toronto research project that was looking for a way to type on a touchscreen phone without having to look at the screen. It’s pretty much impossible the way it is now, with the full QWERTY keyboard and space bar, right? That’s because it was designed for the typewriter, and doesn’t really make sense on a device that allows you to automatically correct your mistakes.
The Minuum keyboard is instead what they’re calling a “one dimensional keyboard,” meaning it’s only made up of one line, instead of four or more. But it keeps the QWERTY system to enough of a degree that you’re not really changing the way you’re typing, while at the same time being faster and more efficient. What really makes this technology special though, is how the Whirlscape team has thought ahead to how it could be used for technology other than phones or tablet, and even technology that isn’t quite out or in the mainstream yet, like smartwatches or Google Glass. Minuum can be used on almost any device or writable surface — you can use it on video game consoles, you can use it with motion controls, you can even write it on a piece of paper and attach it to a device and type that way, or write on your arm in pen and take a picture. It is truly some crazy, futuristic stuff. But here’s the video showing Minuum in action, just in case you don’t believe me.
But, the Minuum team is in need of $10,000 in order to finish the project, and they’ve taken to Indiegogo to help raise the funds. A minimum $5 donation gets your early access to the Android beta, which is set to come out later this year. If you like what Minuum has to offer, $5 is really a small price to pay.
[via Indiegogo]
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Megan Patterson is the Science and Technology Editor at Paper Droids and currently a Toronto Standard intern. She also tweets more than is healthy or wise.
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