I.TECH Virtual Keyboard

A projected keyboard - is it the future?

Just when we'd given up hope. We were promised virtual-reality suits so we could enter that Lawnmower Man cyber-world and fly around in the ether. Tosh. We were all supposed to have a couple of flat-panel speakers that looked like paintings but provided virtual 5.1 audio. Pah.

But this could be the turning point. Sit this amazing device on a flat, clear area, plug it into a PC (via a serial port only - yuck), Pocket PC or Windows smart phone and - holy touch-sensitivity, Batman! - it projects a full qwerty keyboard onto the surface in front of and below it. Pressing any of these "virtual keys" does the same as pressing the keys on a normal keyboard. Awesome - and it glows! So this is the future, right?

Actually, this works about as well as throwing a sack of spuds at a typewriter and hoping to reproduce some Kafka. It's unresponsive and too sensitive to light - you often have to shade the keys with your hand to get them working - and prodding on a hard, unyielding desk, table or whatever makes your fingers sore very quickly. Also, if the surface isn't perfectly flat and stable, the unit falls over and turns itself off (thanks to a trip switch on the base). No good for trains, then.

We can't think of any reason why this technology should ever replace touchscreens, mechanical keys or those holographic controls in Minority Report. It's a clever gimmick for showing off to your mates - but don't let them do any typing or they'll realise how virtually useless it is.