Virtual keyboards have been around for sometime now. It is mainly used along with smart phones and PDAs which have tiny keypads.
Virtual keyboards have absolutely no mechanical moving parts, infact the device just projects the image of the QWERTY keyboard on the flat surface using a diode laser. But how does it know which key we have pressed?
This is made possible by a small Infrared laser diode which shines a thin layer of IR rays along the surface above the image. When we touch a key on the image this is noted by a CMOS detector and a special sensor chip called a Virtual Interface Processing Core analyzes the location of the intended keystroke and notifies the processor.
The main advantage while using a virtual laser keyboard is the mobility. You can carry it anywhere you go and is just the size of a mobile phone. But for proper working the surface have to be perfectly flat and nonreflective. And also you wont get the sensation of pressing something while using it.
Right now im really enjoying each key being pressed by my fingers. Its not always easy to leave behind something that you have been using for a long time.And I dont have any intension of buying a laser keyboard in the near future. For any of you who would like to buy it can go here.
