Keyboard

There’s always a little bit more we can do to help the environment, and it makes sense to do so – using renewable sources of energy not only saves the planet, but it saves a little money too. But did you know you could save energy with every single button press on your keyboard? Well, you can! One…

I love this! Over on Channel 9, Matthew Bennett describes in detail the sounds in the upcoming Windows Phone 7. One notable feature, which blogger Long Zheng discovered too, is that the soft-keyboard on the phone varies the sound the keys make as you type. Instead of just using one “key click”…

OK, right up front, I’m not so sure about the name, but these are scientists and engineers, not brand marketers, over there at Microsoft Research, so I’ll give them a pass. In any event, the “RearType” project is definitely an interesting idea, whether or not it makes it into mainstream consumer…

I just stumbled across a bookmark-worthy page for all you Hotmail users. The Life Rocks blog posted a great big list of keyboard shortcuts that work in Windows Live Hotmail. These shortcuts let you navigate through Hotmail completely mouse-free, something which not only speeds up the time you spend…

“Ghosting” is a problem which refers to the inability of most keyboards to read more than two key presses at once. Because of the way keyboards are designed – with a stack of plastic sheets to create a grid of wires underneath – pressing more than a couple of keys the same time leads problems in…

There is a somewhat little known department here at Microsoft called the Applied Science Group and they do some truly incredible work. They are the research team behind Microsoft Hardware. I met up with Paul Dietz from this group and he showed me the amazing new Micrososft Pressure…

I can hardly believe it’s taken this long to see something like this, but it’s probably one of the most handy features I’ve seen introduced in a long, long time: spill-proof keyboards. This week, HP unveiled two new Windows 7 notebook computers designed for business users, the HP ProBook 5445b and…

Sean Butterworth sat down with us to show us Microsoft's newest and thinnest keyboard, the Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000.

The brand-new Wireless Comfort 5000 keyboard is a perfect complement to a Windows 7 desktop PC as it includes a number of features designed specifically for the new OS. Where some keyboards feature “favorites” buttons that launch programs like email or your web browser upon pressing, the Wireless…

Brandon Paddock has just posted a useful resource for those of us beta testing the new Windows 7 beta – it’s a list of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts (with a couple new ones Dr. Sneath didn't have earlier this week.) The list includes a slew of hotkey combinations that are new to…