Imagine typing on a keyboard without any keys. As Patently Apple reports, If the latest patent posted by Apple is anything to go by you won’t have to leave that feat to your imagination for too long. The company has filed for the patent, ‘Piezo-based acoustic and capacitive detection’, in the first quarter of 2010 for a keyless keyboard.
This virtual keyboard is likely to be placed in a case made of glass, metal and plastic. It will use acoustic pulse recognition and pressure-sensitive piezo-electric sensors to detect fingers as they tap on the flat surface of the keyboard. The keyboard will be backlit by LED lights.
The trouble with such a device will be deciding if a finger is actually pressing a button as it rests on the keyboard or if it is just resting there. This problem will be solved by piezoelectrics and capacitive buttons to distinguish between accidental presses and the deliberate ones made by the fingers.
There is also a likelihood of a haptic or tactile feedback via the fingertips from the keyboard. For instance the fingers may get a gentle vibration to let the user understand that a particular key has been pressed. There is also the possibility that a corresponding LED light may flash up as the key is pressed. The patent may be indicative of future designs for Apple laptops.
Patent Abstract
One particular implementation conforming to aspects of the present disclosure takes the form of an input device for a computing system. The input device includes a input surface on which one or more input characters are shown and one or more sensors to detect which input character is pressed or selected by the user. In one example, the input device may include one or more piezo-electric sensors that detect an acoustic pulse created when the user taps on the input surface to indicate a selected input. Each character of the input surface of the input device creates a different acoustic pulse signature when tapped such that, upon detection and receiving of the acoustic pulse at the piezo-electric sensors, the input device or computer system may compare the received pulse to a database of stored pulse signatures to determine which character on the surface of the input device was tapped by the user.