Google Open-Sourced a Hat Shaped Like a Giant Keycap - and It Actually Types (arstechnica.com) 20
Google Japan's latest DIY project is for people who can't get keyboards off their heads. From a report: Google isn't making this product. Instead, the Gboard CAPS project is another of Google Japan's joke keyboard ideas, like the 5.25-foot-long, single-row Gboard Stick Version keyboard shown off last year, used to promote Google's Gboard app. However, Google Japan seemingly prototyped the keyboard in real life. Everything you need to make this typing topper, including the firmware and hardware, is open source and available on GitHub. How do you type with the hat? It has a 6-axis sensor that reads its position. Turn the hat to select a character and press its top to enter. It pairs via Bluetooth, runs on a 3.7V, 120mAh battery, and charges via USB-C.
Japanese IME (Score:5, Interesting)
This is from Google Japan, and one of their main products is an "Input Method Editor". It's basically a bit like the old predictive text input for dumb phones with only a number pad. You enter an approximation of what you want to type using a QWERTY layout keyboard, and it both converts it to Japanese characters and tries to predict what you might be writing to save you typing all of it.
IMEs are a big deal in Japan, because they are pretty fundamental to the way you use a computer, and because it's actually really hard to make a good one that copes well with things like names and jargon. The most popular commercial one seems to have been discontinued, so it's basically a choice between the built in Windows/MacOS one, or Google's. And Google's is the best, by quite a long way.
Anyway, the other major product coming out of Google Japan seems to be joke peripherals like this. Oh, and slightly different versions of Pixel phones, that support Japans contactless stored value cards (Suica etc.) and where you can't turn the camera shutter noise off.
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You'd think someone in Japan would be interested in something better than a QWERTY keyboard for input. I'm sure that is not the best for productivity. I understand the character set is huge but having to learn a Romanization standard to be able to type in native characters sounds like back assward.
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This looks like a refinement of the Sushi Cup version from two years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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You can actually use a Japanese keyboard for Kana Nyuuryoku (ie.Kana input) for typing in Hiragana or katakana symbols directly instead of Romaji Nyuuryoku (ie. using pairs of Roman letters for kana input) but actually most Japanese use Romaji - I guess because it's easier?
You need 46 keys for all the Hiragana characters, so many of the keys or other punctuation marks are.
No one ever managed to make a 2000 to 3000 key keyboard for all the kanji that a highschool / uni student is expected to know, so they u
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So if you are going to mash multiple root characters to get the one final character, you might as well just use romaji...
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Forgot to say - thanks for digging up that link - quite the most impressive keyboard I have seen.
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A lot of Japanese people still use the old numpad long-press predictive entry system for phones. Really though, there just isn't anything better.
Japanese has 3 sets of characters. You have hiragana, which is phonetic and consists of 48 characters. Some of them are modified forms, a bit like in some Latin derived languages you can have accents over certain letters. So it's just about possible to fit them all on a QWERTY layout keyboard, and from there the computer can translate to the other character sets (k
Don't get too excited... (Score:3, Insightful)
It will be discontinued next year. :-/
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predictable troll is ...predictable.
Yet another missing source measurement (Score:2)
5.25 feet is almost exactly 1600 mm. I'm guessing Ars has converted that without listing the original measurement.
Question... how to get hired by this group? (Score:3)
- Yearly trip to corporate headquarters
- Hit the local dispensaries... HARD
- "Ideiate" the team project for the year (old school folks would call it "puff puff pass")
- Head back to Japan
- Spend the rest of the year f*cking around on some dumb ass project.
It's literally like getting paid for your junior year of college over, and over and over again.
Re: Question... how to get hired by this group? (Score:3)
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country that legalized (1) prostitution and (2) natural drug use [...] Promise a room full of virgins (3) regular sex as a signing bone-us?
You're welcome to visit the Netherlands when you feel like. (1) is their Red District, (2) is any coffee shop or free heroin from the hospital, and (3) is what they call "surrogate partner therapy".
Missing from post (Score:3)
Just don't use it to enter your password (Score:2)
Someone might be able to guess what it is.
Jay Leno (Score:2)
You can't beat Jay Leno's bit, "Technology Too Useful To Be True" (or something like that)... One evening he showcased a full-sized keyboard with only two large buttons on it. The Internet Keyboard For Guys. It has two buttons: PORN and OFF.