Disclaimer

The content of this blog is my personal opinion only. Although I am an employee - currently of Nvidia, in the past of other companies such as Iagination Technologies, MIPS, Intellectual Ventures, Intel, AMD, Motorola, and Gould - I reveal this only so that the reader may account for any possible bias I may have towards my employer's products. The statements I make here in no way represent my employer's position, nor am I authorized to speak on behalf of my employer. In fact, this posting may not even represent my personal opinion, since occasionally I play devil's advocate.

See http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcxddbtr_23cg5thdfj for photo credits.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Speech vs pen vs keyboard vs ALPs pad

Last Friday I posted to Facebook about how happy I was with my end of week Seattle to Portland commute.  I was only person in the van, so I plugged in my headset mike and started dictating via Vista's built-in speech recognition. Sweet!  Most productive 4 hour van ride I have yet had.

This Monday morning's commute there are 2 other passengers. Sleeping.  I don't want to wake them, so I have been reading USEnet news and Gmail using my pen. Handwriting replies, but mainly point and click.  Useable, but doesn't feel as productive.

Typing this on keyboard.  Not as nice as speech.  Errors caused by bouncing of van.  Mainly due to ALP pad: van bounces, hand brushes pad, typing goes astray.  I think that I will have to disable ALP pad while in van, get another pointing device.  Wish I had an IBM style pointing stick. Q: what other non-ALP pointing devices are there, that can be used in a bouncing van?

Bottom line:  for a bouncing van (also, bouncing small commuter planes):

Speech wins, if not annoying others

Pen/handwriting okay

Keyboard maybe

ALPs pad loses

1 comment:

Andy "Krazy" Glew said...

Idea: how about a mini trackball that can be mounted on the first section of the index finger - just below the joint, closest to the hand?

Or maybe the second section, between the two joints? Heck, anywhere on the index finger.

Can easily have thumbs, of either hand, manipulate.

Maybe some advantage to simultaneous manioulation. 2 2D pointers...

Bluetootgh, sure, but body area networking easy: just rest hands on, e.g., laptop.

Power?

Might be able to string power back to a bracelet, or even gauntlet.