Samsung will be showcasing some of the fruits of its C-Lab Inside idea incubation program when CES kicks off in Las Vegas next week. Amongst the ideas dreamt up by Samsung employees are a virtual keyboard for mobile devices, a data-digitizing highlighter and an electronic scalp analyzer designed to help users hang onto their hair.
Samsung established its C-Lab (creative lab) Inside program in 2012 and says 40 alumni projects have made the jump to fully-fledged start-ups in that time, including Welt, Linkflow, Linkface and Luple. The projects that will be on display at CES 2020 focus on “a convenient and healthy lifestyle,” with SelfieType making a play for the convenience category.
We’ve seen numerous attempts at freeing mobile device users from the confines of on-screen virtual keyboards, from folding, rolling or one-handed physical keyboards to virtual onesprojected onto a flat surface. The SelfieType is a virtual keyboard, but without the projection aspect. It relies on a device’s front-facing selfie camera – hence its name – to capture the typist’s finger movements and an AI engine to divine what they’re typing.
The upside of this approach is that it doesn’t require any additional hardware and could presumably work on just about any smartphone. Conversely, keyboards that don’t provide any tactile feedback are notoriously difficult to use, and SelfieType doesn’t even project a virtual keyboard onto a surface to let you know where to tap your fingers. We’ll reserve our judgement on this one.
Key-free keyboard amongst Samsung C-Lab innovations headed to CES [New Atlas]