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10 Inventions On Reducing Keyboard Size, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A conventional computer keyboard consists of as many as 101 keys. The keyboard has several sections, such as text entry section, navigation section, and numeric keypad etc. and each having several keys on the keyboard. The size of the keyboard is a major inconvenience for portable computers, as they cannot be carried easily. Thus there are certain circumstances which compels to reduce the size of a keyboard. Reducing the size of a keyboard leads to several problems. A reduced size keyboard may not contain all the keys available on a full size keyboard; a reduced size keyboard may not be …

Inventions On Reducing Number Of Keys On A Computer Keyboard, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A computer keyboard consists of several sections and each section consists of several numbers of keys. The text entry section contains the standard character keys, navigation section contains cursor movement and page control keys, numeric keypad contains numeric keys and function keys section contain function keys and special keys. Although the increased number of keys helps smooth interaction with a computer there are situations where it is necessary to reduce the number of keys. The need for reducing number of keys in a keyboard creates a technical contradiction. Generally more number of keys can support more number of functions and …

Inventions On Soft Keyboards, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The soft keyboards are onscreen representation of physical keyboard having alphanumeric characters and other controls. The user operates the soft keyboard with the mouse, a stylus or other pointing device. The soft keys don’t have any mechanical component. The soft keyboards are used in many public places for informational purpose, educational systems and financial transactional systems. A soft keyboard is convenient in some cases where a hard keyboard is difficult to manage. The soft keyboard is a substitute of a physical keyboard and is displayed on the screen. It displays the same type of alphanumeric and control keys like the …

Inventions On Keyboard Illumination: A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The conventional computers are not usable in dark, as the user cannot see the keyboard to operate properly. But there are many situations where the user may like to work on his computer under low light conditions, such as, during nights, while traveling in flights/ trains having low lights, working in the garden during evening etc. So it is necessary to provide some light to the laptop to operate the keyboard under low light situations.

Luminescence of the keyboard is a desirable feature for portable computers. There may be several methods to illuminate the keyboard, the most crude may be …

10 Inventions On Improving Keyboard Efficiency: A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A keyboard is the most important input device for a computer. With the development of technology a basic keyboard does not want to remain confined within the basic functionalities of a keyboard, rather it wants to go beyond. There are several inventions which attempt to improve the efficiency of a conventional keyboard. This article illustrates 10 inventions from US Patent database all of which have proposed very interesting methods for improving the efficiency of a computer keyboard. Some interesting inventions include, adding toolbar buttons on the keyboard, power saving method, keyboard-cooling mechanism, robust keyboard for public use, keyboard enhancement for …

10 Inventions On Keyboard Key Layout: A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The standard QWERTY keyboard was developed in the late 1800’s for the typewriters. As people were acquainted with that the same layout was retained for the computer keyboards. Many people feel that the QWERTY layout is not very efficient layout and there have been many inventions on different layouts of character keys.

In order to improve the key arrangement, two major issues should be addressed. (i) The improved key arrangement should offer significantly improved productivity. (ii) The training time for learning the improved key arrangement should be minimized.

This article analyzes 10 inventions from US patent database each of which …

10 Inventions On Keyboard Attachments: A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Although the primary objective of the keyboard to input data into the computer, the advanced keyboards keep various other things in mind, such as, how to use the same keyboard for various other purposes, or how to use the same keyboard efficiently by using various other attachments to the keyboard. This objective led to various inventions on keyboard attachments, some of which are illustrated below in this article. This article illustrates 10 inventions on various keyboard attachments from US patent database. Each different attachment improves the usability of the keyboard in some way or other. Some attachments illustrated are template …