Computer Engineering Commons^™

Using Triz To Design The Future Keyboard, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A keyboard is the most common and widely used input device for a computer. Using the keyboard is often vital to interact with a computer. There are several aspects of a keyboard such as size, key layout, convenience and ergonomic features etc., which are continuously under improvement by keyboard designers and manufacturers. TRIZ is an efficient methodology in product designing. Using IFR and Trends we can well predict the directions of the future keyboards and using Contradictions and Principles we can overcome the current limitations. This article analyses the critical features of a keyboard, does a functional analysis, derives the …

10 Inventions On Collapsible Keyboards, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Although a bigger keyboard is often comfortable to work with, they cannot be fit into laptop and small size computer boxes. The portable and handheld computers need small size keyboards. So there is a need to reduce the size of the keyboard to fit into the laptop box. There are various mechanisms to reduce the size of the keyboard; collapsible keyboard is one of them.

Although different inventions intend to achieve the same objective of reducing the keyboard size, they all differ in their mechanism. For example, some invention uses a compression mechanism, some invention uses a folding mechanism, and …

10 Inventions On Modular Keyboards, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

As a standard keyboard is quite spacious many inventions try to use the space of keyboard to use for various activities. A modular keyboard is designed in such a way that the components of the keyboard can be attached and detached as per the need. This article illustrates 10 inventions on modular keyboard from US patent database. The objective of these inventions is to make a keyboard modular, so that the same keyboard can be made smaller by detaching some of its components and larger by attaching additional attachments. Some modular keyboards provide slots for external attachments like mouse, telephone, …

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 …