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Comment by gryfft | Hacker News Reader

Thinking in product terms instead of surveillance terms, imagine wireless keyboards that don't need batteries, bluetooth, or even any internal electronics!

I can also see a future home assistant using a laser microphone to pick up on users' speech from anywhere in a room without needing to raise one's voice above a mutter.

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You just gave me a cool idea. You could do this by fitting small tuning forks (or similar) to a mechanical keyboard. Bonus points if all of the forks are tuned to a pleasant scale.

Then all you need is a microphone running on the destination device. Obviously this is insecure but could be fun anyway.

Check out the Zenith Space Command TV remote from the 50s https://www.theverge.com/23810061/zenith-space-command-remot...

It would be difficult to manage the ~90 different tuning forks such a keyboard would require. Far more sensible for each of the keys to be connected to some sort of tensioned wire, the tension of which could be adjusted to achieve the required tuning.

We can only await the revival of keyboard tuners, and the interviewees of the future puzzling over how many of them are required for a city the size of Chicago.

It's also not clear how you would handle keys that are held down. Or rather, how you would distinguish between keydown and keyup events. But perhaps with your tensioned wire you could use a pick on the key (such as in a harpsichord) which has a different texture on each side, affecting the timbre but not the pitch.

Good idea giving life to non powered things. In this case latency will be a problem, but will be great in no latency depended applications.

Is the amount of power needed for the laser lower than the amount of power a USB-keyboard, or a Bluetooth connected keyboard needs?

Either way, I’m all for laser monitored keyboard. If nothing else then just for the reactions of others when I bring my laptop and a USB-corded keyboard and start typing on the external keyboard without plugging it in :)

(Although I guess, there’s a pretty high chance they will just assume that the keyboard simply has Bluetooth and that that is how it’s working even though not plugged in.)

alternate technology:

take out a blank sheet of paper, draw a game pad with controls, start playing a game on screen by tapping those buttons you just drew

edit:

combine ..

Gestures from Apple Vision Pro

GenAI capabilities that can convert a sketch into a working web page

Smart Home automation

MakeyMakey from 2014? Would let you setup a gamepad you drew on paper with a pencil. Though it is wired, still impressive.

https://makeymakey.com/

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18303012

> Is the amount of power needed for the laser lower than the amount of power a USB-keyboard, or a Bluetooth connected keyboard needs?

I think the point is that the keyboard itself needs 0 power, so it doesn't ever need to be tethered, recharged, have batteries replaced, etc.

I don't think the keyboard would be accurate enough with current ones, but if they were modified to have unique tones or audio characteristics it might work.

The room mic would be awesome, as long as laser safety concerns were addressed.

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