Fastap Keyboard

What is the oldest design, still absolutely common among all the Star Trek 21st century computers we use today? Yes, even the Titanium Intel Core Duo Macs... The QWERTY keyboard, patented almost 130 years ago. And the primary design goal was for it to be as slow and uncomfortable, as possible. Ironic? Yes, it is. And if you look at the keyboard on the mobile phone, it is even worse for what it is used nowadays. 12 numeric buttons to be the input device of choice for mobile email, chat, instant messaging, SMSes, navigating 500+ entries in the address book... 8_44_444_7777 1 444_7777 1 2 1 5_666_55_33_!!! (this is a joke!!!).

We are flying to the moon, building ultra fast HSxPA mobile networks, launching cell-based Sony PS3 supercomputers to the masses, yet all these designs share 130 years old design at the very center.

Time to break free? At least this is what Digit Wireless thinks, giving us the Fastap design. And I do agree. Despite T9 and other approaches to solve the text entry problem on mobile phones, we do not have any really good mechanism, we would be happy with. Fastap really looks like it can change something, at least before most of the phones will be equipped with usable ASR (automatic speech recognition). And I do mean usable, not the famous Vista - like...

Fastap really looks like a good solution to most of us, ordinary phone users, who more and more often try to enter alphanumeric characters on our phones. I must say I was really surprised when I looked at the Nokia 111 - the concept 4G/5G "phone of the future" that has come out as a winner from a 6 months long design competition. Yeah, it has a nice screen and an iPod-like wheel at the center (why not a virtual one?). And I like the folding keypad that can be used as a desktop stand. But is it really all we are going to get on our way to 5G? May be just extrapolating the progress in keyboard design since 1878, we should not expect anything more... But I hope the Fastap guys do not agree, and will the design gap we have all got too used to question...