Dave’s Ipaq – iTECH Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard — A Real Taste of Virtual Reality!! @ Dave’s iPAQ

There are six tabs in the VKB program:

VKB, Properties, Connection, AutoRepeat, Short-Cuts, About.

This tab offers you the ability to Enable the VKB Monitor the battery level Adjust the Intensity of the transmission of the template Enable Sound Affects for the Pocket PC and the VKB

A Sensitivity slider to adjust the “touch” as you type Time-Outs for the device and the projection of the template

You have the ability to choose a Serial or Bluetooth connection. (Bluetooth will NOT appear if it is not turned on).

Enable Auto Repeat Adjust the Repeat Rate Adjust the Initial Repeat Delay

There are 13 different short-cuts give for you to use. I tried a few—they work!

Brief information about VKB Inc.

I have kept all the settings at the default level because I find that they have been perfect for me. I did test each and found that the adjustments were distinctly noticeable. User preference will determine what settings to use. The only complaint I have is the battery monitor. It is not as good as I would have liked. It does not adjust to the actual remaining power very well.

So how does this device work? The template is projected onto your desktop through a holographic optical element with a red diode laser. At the same time, there is an infrared plane of light that is transmitted across the surface of your desktop. You cannot see this light (however, I was able to capture an image of it emitting light using a night vision camera) but it lies just above your desktop by a few millimeters. When you touch a key that is part of the holographic image, the light is reflected from to the sensor module.

The reflected light passes through an infrared filter and is imaged on to a CMOS image sensor in the sensor module. The sensor chip then determines from what location the reflected light came from. The chip has the ability to track multiple keystrokes at the same time thus allowing for keystrokes like CTRL-Fn number key. It makes a lot of sense to me how it works but I can’t imagine the time it took to develop this. Frankly, the only thing I care about is that it works well!

Certainly, there are a lot of uses for a device like this. Of course, our main interest is on the iPAQ but all of us have multiple devices so it would be nice to use the BTVKB with them too — and you can! You can use the BTVKB with your iPAQ, cell phone, portable computers, Tablet PCs, and Laptops.

As for industry, I can see very clear uses in test environments, hospitals (especially in a surgical operating room), “Clean Rooms”, or any room that needed a sterile environment. Certainly, one could see this used in places where darkness would prohibit the ability to see a regular keyboard.