New toy: Celluon Laserkey CL800BT

by Volker Weber

The Laserkey is a virtual keyboard which claims to work with Windows Mobile, Pocket PC & Smart Phone edition, Palm OS, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows 2000/XP or higher. The problem is, there are no drivers for Blackberry and Symbian devices.

laserkeyboard

I was able to get it working with a Palm Lifedrive. Sort of. It projects a keyboard on any flat surface, so that you know where to type. Then it checks where an obstacle like your finger appears within two millimeters of the surface. You have to carefully hold your fingers high enough and then hunt and peck your characters. And that works about as good as the handwriting recognition in an Apple Newton.

There is a second product on the market: the I-Tech Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB). It is somewhat cheaper, actually has drivers for Symbian and Blackberry. And it works exactly the same.

Great toy to attract some attention. But for real use it is complete rubbish.

Comments

I was there!

Totally useless toy.

Paul Mooney, 2006-10-29

I've thought the leapfrog pen thing for kids would make a fantastic input device for traveling laptop users if adapted just a bit. I wonder if someone will do that.

Andrew Pollack, 2006-10-30

I thought it would be good if you could re-map the keys on the fly. Type something in English, then switch to a German keyboard, then to a Japanese Kanji keyboard etc. Last time I checked this was not possible, it has a built in keyboard image and won't project anything else. It would be excellent if it could be fed an image to project and an overlay of key positions.

Alan Bell, 2006-10-30

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