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The evolution and commercialization of the ErgoDox keyboard

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Infinity ErgoDox

I mentioned the ErgoDox keyboard in my article A few interesting keyboards nearly in existence.... Strictly speaking, the ErgoDox was already in existence at the time (almost exactly a year ago), but as I pointed out, it wasn't a commercial product. The ErgoDox keyboard was originally designed by Geekhack.org user Dox (aka Dominic Beauchamp), and developed in a thread started on October 10, 2011 titled ErgoDox - Custom split ergo keyboard with input from the Geekhack community. The design was based in part on the earlier Key64 concept, which itself derives its ideas from a variety of earlier keyboards, and partly from the layout of the Kinesis Advantage keyboard (in particular the thumb cluster). What's amazing, considering that hundreds (maybe thousands) of ErgoDox keyboards have been sold, is that Dox was originally hoping to get 5-10 people to commit to buying it to bring down his costs. When the design was completed, and the PCB finished (the PCB design was done by geekhack user bpiphany - aka Fredrik Atmer), the design was made available for free online.   MassDrop "Group Buys" A kit containing all the parts needed to assemble the keyboard was made available first via MassDrop, a site that allows…

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How many keys are there on a keyboard?

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Full-Size Keyboard Layout

Longtime readers of this blog might have noticed my interest in computer keyboards. Most people today just use the keyboard that comes on their laptop, or the virtual one on their tablet. The basic layout of the keyboard dates back over a hundred years to early typewriters, but the more modern layout of the keyboard dates back to 1986 and the emergence of the IBM Enhanced Keyboard for the Personal Computer, which debuted the 101-key layout which has become the standard full-size keyboard layout to this day. Microsoft bumped the layout to 104 keys with the addition of Windows keys and a Menu key a bit later, but the layout is essentially the same. This is a rule-of-thumb, as no two keyboards are exactly the same. The number of keys on a full size keyboard varies, some having media keys, etc. The layout, more or less, is the following: It's worth pointing out that the 101/104 layout is the standard layout in the US, called ANSI (American National Standards Institute), while in Europe there is slightly different 102/105 key layout called ISO (International Organization for Standardization). The ISO layout has an extra key (to the right of the left-side Shift key),…

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Teaching Computer Science (in Saudi Arabia)

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PythonTurtle

Recently I came across two computer programming products, whose creators have mentioned they're being used in the high school curricula of Saudi Arabia. The reasons I was looking at the these two products were not connected, so I thought it an interesting coincidence that I came across similar stories twice in about a week. The first product was a learning program called PythonTurtle, created by Israeli developer Ram Rachum. Python, for those who don't know, is a popular computer programming language. Turtle is a reference to the 'turtle' used in the Logo programming language, which is an icon or point that shows the current position of the cursor on the screen when drawing using Logo. Logo is an early computer language developed specifically as an educational tool for teaching programming (and one of the test schools where it was used was my elementary school in Brookline, MA). The goal of PythonTurtle was to create a learning environment similar to Logo, but using the modern (and more useful) programming language Python. Ram Rachum developed PythonTurtle six years ago and released it as open-source software. Last year he started noticing a large number of traffic to his site from Saudi Arabia, although he…

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From bibles to web sites, the century-long trek of one font

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Part of the first page of the Doves Press edition of the Bible

I appreciate a good font, and I certainly appreciate good typography. Reading badly laid out books can be painful (although my threshold is much higher than my friends who are typographers by trade). The over-use of Comic Sans or Papyrus fonts is not something that just bothers me. Recently I read about the resurrection of a font last used over a century ago. The story is quite incredible. Two men founded a publishing company, one bringing the creative side (Thomas Cobden-Sanderson) and the other the money (Emery Walker). The company, Doves Press, created a new font (new, although based on a font from the 15th century) to be used in their publications, which included an edition of the Bible, as well as books by well-known authors such as John Milton, whose Paradise Lost published by Doves is nothing less than a masterpiece of bindery, before even getting to the contents. Trouble Begins When the publishing company ran into financial trouble, the partners fought over the single remaining asset of the company – the typeface. Today we think of fonts as digital files on a computer. We don't think about how much time goes into designing them, especially since anyone who wants…

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Time for some Pi

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The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

The Raspberry Pi is a single-board credit-card-sized computer introduced in 2012. The computer was designed for use in teaching computer science to a new generation whose cell phones and modern computers had reduced the number of children who knew how computers actually worked. Used in education as well as by hobbyists, the Raspberry Pi has been incredibly successful and has sold over four million units. New versions of the Raspberry Pi are designed by the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation, and then built by multiple partner manufacturers. This week the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the availability of their second-generation board, the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. It's not the second board (there has been the Model A, Model A+, Model B, and Model B+ before, as well as the Pi Compute Module for embedded applications), but rather it is the first board since introduction to use a new processor, the Broadcom BCM2836. The new processor is roughly six times as fast as the previous processor, going from a single-core ARM11 to a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, as well doubling the RAM to 1GB (shared with the GPU). Despite those changes, the board remains backwards-compatible with previous Raspberry Pi software, the hardware is pin-compatible with the previous Model B+ board,…

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Privacy in the age of technology

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The recent kerfuffle over Uber and Lyft employees being able to track the locations that individual customers get picked up and dropped off at reminded me of an incident back when I worked at WebTV Networks in 1996. WebTV, for those who don't remember, was a set-top box that allowed users to surf the web and send e-mail using a wireless keyboard and their television. It was truly a revolutionary device, and it was put together by some of the smartest people in Silicon Valley. It launched with devices manufactured by Sony and Philips, with the service run by WebTV. This was the early days of the Internet – the first mainstream browser Netscape was only introduced in late 1994, and Internet Explorer about a year earlier in 1995. These were dial-up days, when most people were not yet on the Internet, and those that were mostly accessed it via their telephone lines (at university were were able to access it via AppleTalk). The WebTV box had a modem inside and would dial-up to the WebTV Networks service, which was an ISP. Dial-up ISP Business Model The business model of dial-up ISPs was interesting in that they did not have the ability…

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What if Apple made watch movements instead of watches?

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ETA A07-211 Movement

I've written what features I think future all-in-one wearables will have, took a second look at that on the eve of the Apple Watch launch, and had some questions about what Apple left out of their presentation after they launched. All things considered, if you look at what features I think need to be in a smart watch, and what Apple delivered, there are some gaps. Most important to me are the following: Battery life needs to last longer. Battery charging needs to be simpler. Real water resistance would be nice. More health sensors are needed to replace the need for a separate fitness band. There are definitely improvements possible in the looks department. Let's take a look at these in turn: Battery Life Until the watch launches early next year we won't know for sure, but it seems clear the battery life of the Apple Watch is not particularly good. Apple reps have mentioned charging overnight, meaning the battery likely doesn't last more than 24 hours (and possibly not even that long). Considering fitness bands generally last a week or more, and that some people want to monitor their sleep patterns, this is particularly annoying. Not that one can…

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What was not said about the Apple Watch

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So the keynote just ended. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were about as expected. Other than the obvious screen resolution and battery differences, it seems the only functional difference between the two is Optical Stabilization for photography in the 6 Plus. Apple Pay is a great solution for payments that Apple has already gotten many large retailers on board for, something it seems they are uniquely capable of doing. I don't remember other companies getting that kind of traction from the stay with a new payment method. The real announcement of the event was, however, the Apple Watch. Some things about the watch which are interesting: The Digital Crown is a great user interface coup for Apple. Being able to navigate through some features without ones fingers blocking the screen is important for such a small screen. There is some intelligence in the messaging app that allows it to suggest answers to texts which is really interesting if it works. i.e. if You receive a text asking 'Do you want to get Sushi or Burgers for lunch?' it should be able to suggest Sushi and Burgers as quick-response options. Apple is clearly leading in physical options for their watch.…

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On the brink of an Apple wearable

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Asus ZenWatch and Sony SmartWatch 3

Back in April I wrote a post titled One Wearable to Rule Them All? Not likely. predicting where I thought the wearable market was heading. My basic idea was that there are essentially three types of wearables – the all-in-one, the single-purpose, and the multi-position. The all-in-one is where the smart watch category is headed. These wearables will look like watches, have sensors to track many different health issues (steps, motion, heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen, etc.), and be able to assist in authentication and commerce. This is in addition to an array of information-realted apps, and an optional link to your smart phone. The single-purpose is best represented by fitness bands that track health data or bands like the nymi that can be used for security applications. These bands are almost always worn on the wrist, and are focused on a single application. These wearables can be wholly replaced by an all-in-one wearable. The multi-position is a variation on the single-purpose, is usually focused on health, but can be worn in several positions, such as your wrist, your ankle, etc. and be used for many sports such as running, biking, swimming, etc. The best example of this is the Moov, although…

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Uber meets Pretty Woman

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Uber Search on Product Hunt

Robert Altman's The Player, a 1992 crime drama that at the same time skewers Hollywood as an industry (the main character is a Hollywood producer), famously opens with a long shot listening to several people talking, including screenwriters pitching their movie to the main character, played by Tim Robbins. After trying to describe their film, one pair of screenwriters finally summarize it as "Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman". This type of summary, called a high-concept pitch, is a short easily-understood summary, usually based on a comparison to something well-known. Some people credit Barry Diller (later CEO of Paramount, Fox, and IAC/InterActiveCorp) and Michael Eisner (later CEO of Disney) with coming up with the high-concept pitch, when they both worked at ABC in the 1960s, and needed a way to draw attention to their programs from the brief descriptions allowed in TV Guide. This carries over not only to the description of movie or TV show, but the very concept – i.e. that the movie or show's concept be simple and easy to summarize quickly. The high-concept pitch is the sound-bite of the entertainment world. Ash Maurya in his Running Lean book, suggests using the high-concept pitch to distill one's company down to a…

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The rise of hardware startups – thank you crowdfunding

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Keyboardio Model o1

I've worked in both hardware and software companies over the years, and both are interesting and challenging, but there there is something special about making something you can hold in your hand, and that people will see on store shelves (even if virtual). One of the amazing things that crowdfunding sites have enabled is hardware products to come out faster and from smaller companies than was possible in the past. I should add that almost all great hardware companies have great software behind them. Certainly with any electronic product, there is software controlling it. Sure, not all hardware needs software – my friend's Grape Ninja product which became the OXO Tomato & Grape Cutter – doesn't need software to operate. It did benefit from crowdfunding as part its marketing campaign, however, before moving to OXO. I've touched on this, particularly in Crowdfunding hardware and Sous Vide cooking, and earlier in discussing A few interesting keyboards, nearly in existence…, and I think this trend towards individuals and small teams coming out with more innovative hardware faster is only going to accelerate as more and more successful products come to market. In A few interesting keyboards, nearly in existence… I mentioned Keyboardio, a company started by an…

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Crowdfunding hardware and Sous Vide cooking

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Sous Vide Equipment (Anova)

This is not a post about cooking. This is a post about crowdfunding and how it is changing how many products are coming to the market. I touched on this briefly in my post on forthcoming keyboard designs, but Sous Vide as a category gives a clearer view of what is going on in crowdfunding of new hardware. Let's get the cooking stuff out of the way. Sous Vide (French for 'under vacuum') is an interesting intersection of technology and cooking. The basic concept is to create a water bath where the water is circulated and heated to a very precise temperature (to a tenth of a degree). Food items are vaccum-sealed in plastic bags and inserted into the water bath. Using lower than normal cooking temperatures, the foods are cooked through and can be accurately cooked to very specific degrees for different types of foods. In use since the 1970s in restaurants where the equipment costs thousands of dollars, the first widely available 'consumer' unit, the Sous Vide Supreme, came out in late 2009 and cost about $400. In the years since then a number of companies have come out with competing devices, both of the self-contained variety like…

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A Lean Canvas you can edit

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One of the simplest (and simplicity is key) ways to outline a business model is using Ash Maurya's Lean Canvas. The Lean Canvas is a tool described in detail in Ash's book Running Lean, as well as in videos and articles online. There are many ways to create a Lean Canvas, from using leancanvas.com, to an iPad app, to just drawing it yourself on a whiteboard or a piece of paper. Wanting to make several Lean Canvases for my article I decided first to make it easy for me to throw together a Lean Canvas using just a PDF editor (like Preview on the Mac, or Adobe Reader on Mac, Windows or Linux). One unfortunate side-effect of Lean Canvas being derived from the earlier Business Model Canvas, is that the order Ash suggests in filling it out is not in any order that makes sense from the layout. For people new to creating a Lean Canvas, this can be confusing, and it can be hard to remember which box to fill in at any given time. What I've done is simply create a PDF version of the Lean Canvas, where each box is labelled with the name as well as the…

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What differentiates a business messaging app?

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Messaging has become a hot area of late (for a look at the history of messaging over the past few decades, see my earlier post). While the $19B sale of WhatsApp to Facebook might take most of the attention, there's been no shortage of other movement in the industry, including the sale of Israeli/Cypriot company Viber to Japan's Rakuten for $900M, the investment of $215M by Alibaba into US company Tango (at a $1.1B valuation), and the rumored IPO plans of both Japanese company LINE (with some estimates putting the valuation at $28B although that seems unlikely) and Korean company Kakao (priced at $2B). One thing all of these companies have in common is their consumer focus. None of these companies develop business messaging platforms. Undoubtedly many teams within companies use these consumer apps, even if not optimized for their needs, to communicate. What features and requirements would make a business team choose a business-focused messaging platform over a free (or at least very inexpensive) consumer one? Let's start with a quick look at who the players are in the business messaging space. It turns out that they are legion. Really. Some examples include Autodesk Instant, Convo, Cotap, Flowdock, GroupMe (owned by Microsoft via Skype),…

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One Wearable to Rule Them All? Not likely.

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This is actually one of the first articles I planned on writing when I started this blog, but I felt I needed to fill in some background first. While this article is my first article about wearables, it follows my articles The long goodbye to passwords and Who do you trust with your identity?, the reasons for which will become clear as you read below. Wearables is clearly an exploding category of products right now. Lots of money is being invested and lots of companies are springing up. I tried to look just at what companies I could find with Twitter accounts, and found over 100 companies. The technology, from sensors to screen quality to battery life have all converged at a 'good enough' level that has encourages lots of experimentation in this field. There are many types of wearables, but I think they can be roughly classified. Classification Let's start by breaking up the very large and growing category of wearables into a few types. While you can further break down the differences, I break them up into three groups: The all-in-one The single-purpose The multi-position The all-in-one is still emerging, but it generally takes the form of a…

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