...and by "at last" I really mean: "yet again."
I really hate moving my hands back and forth from the mouse to the keyboard. It's why I've spent considerable time learning keyboard shortcuts for all my favorite applications. It's also why I love mouse gestures so much. I don't favor the keyboard or the mouse, I favor whatever my grubby hands are currently controlling.
That's why I thought I would like the
fingerworks touchstream LP keyboard. I've known several friends that have them, they report various degrees of success. Of course, the reason I never got one (besides the price) was because of the lack of tactile feedback of the keys, and the fingerworks keyboard faded off as a distant memory as I consider a keyboard without the number pad on the right to minimize the "travel" of my hand.
But my interest was renewed this afternoon when I found (via a totalfark post) the "
Combimouse."
I can't imagine a stranger looking device that I'd want on my desk, but I would like to play around with it for a while. I looked at the video they have available. Once you get used to the fact that your hands moving around when they're typing, it seems like an interesting approach. I think I would probably "re-center" or "home" the right half when I wanted to start typing... I'm willing to bet it would be a reflex for me to move the right side back in tune with the normal keyboard layout. I'd be fine with that- just as long as I'm not physically picking my hand up and moving it all the time. I know, I know, I've written about this in the past, on other sites and forums and I always get the "stop being so lazy" comments... it's not about that at all.
There's a very brief, not too terribly profound
usability study (from 2004) that they post on the website that indicates for mousing:
There was no significant difference between the CombiMouse and the traditional mouse.
...and in regards to typing:
As a keyboard, the CombiMouse performed well, but results showed that the participants were significantly faster typing with the traditional keyboard. This is not surprising given the fact that users had little practice with the new device.
Looks like an interesting approach, although I think the scroll wheel on the left side of the keyboard should be rotated 90 degrees- seems like an odd orientation for it. Oh- I also thought about gaming. Maybe not for first person shooters, but this seems like a "poor man's" nostromo-type thing.
And in conclusion, neither one of these devices might not be any good (afterall, fingerworks is already out of business according to their website). But I at least appreciate someone taking the time and effort to solve this...and I'll keep continuing to track it until someone gets its right.
WIDGETIZE