Virtual Laser Keyboard

An Amazing Innovation of the Technology

A keyboard is the most important input device for the computer, laptop or mobile. Thinking of a doing a work without keyboard, it’s fairly a difficult job. It’s a very difficult task to communicate with friends, family etc through e-mails, messages or any sort of office work or project. So, keyboard is a necessity. But, this being so important device for us, there must be a new essence of technology for this too.

So, a new era has come for the keyboards. A virtual laser keyboard is similar to the simple keyboard but the internal working and the appearance are totally different from the simple keyboard. There will be no mechanical device or no switches. It is in the form of a tiny device which weighs very light and projects a full QWERTY laser keyboard onto any flat surface. It will not give a feeling of pressing a button as we did with the simple keyboards. It’s a best magic for the future.

Product Features:

·         Projects a full-size laser keyboard onto any flat surface.

·         Allows the convenience of full-size typing in a tiny form factor.

·         Connects wirelessly via bluetooth to iPhone, iPad, many Smartphones and most Laptops.

·         Mouse mode allows you to use your finger as a mouse rather than typing when using with a laptop.

·         Rechargeable battery lasts for 150 minutes of continuous typing.

·         Charges via USB. No drivers to install.

Product Specifications:

·   Compatibility: iPhone 3GS/4, iPad (iOS4), Blackberry tablet, Android 2.0 and higher,Windows Phone 7, Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS

·         Interface: Bluetooth HID and USB 2.0

·         Keyboard Layout: 19mm sized QWERTY layout

·         Detection rate: Up to 400 characters per minute

·         Operating Surface: Most flat opaque surfaces

·         Battery duration: Approximately 150 minutes, 700mAh built-in rechargeable battery

Now, we will see how the working makes the laser virtual keyboard apart from the traditional keyboard. A traditional keyboard is the one that is attached to a laptop or is part of a desktop. If we take a look of these keyboards, it has a processor and circuitry under each key, and once we press a key, the switch closes and sends a small electrical current which the processor recognizes and analyzes. The processor, in turn, sends the information regarding our keystrokes to the computer. But when we type on a virtual laser keyboard, there aren't any switches involved. The device projects the image of a QWERTY keyboard onto a flat, non-reflective surface using a red diode laser. The laser shines through a Diffractive Optical Element (DOE), which is simply a tiny image of the keyboard. The DOE, along with special optical lenses, can also expand the image as the user wants and projects it onto a surface.

But a simple image of a keyboard won't work there must be something that needs to analyze the information we type in. At the bottom of the device is an infrared (IR) laser diode, which shoots out a thin plane of infrared light. The plane which is invisible stays only few millimeters above the image of the keyboard. When we start typing, we pass our fingers through certain areas of the infrared light. A CMOS (complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor) senses our finger's position within the area of the keyboard, and a special sensor chip called a Virtual Interface Processing Core analyzes the location of the specific keystroke. The device then sends the information to the computer and it further process accordingly.

There are many features of this and it’s too small and portable but there are disadvantage too. If we think we can use this sitting on train or bus and the laser image will display onto the lap and it will work properly, then it’s not possible because it needs a flat surface only. So, it’s become difficult to communicate with these types of keyboards when we do not have a flat surface.

But anyways, I think this new approach of the technology used will hit the iron. And these keyboards will gain more popularity than the traditional one.