Spacebars are a bit of a dilemma. They serve their purpose and do so very well, but wouldn’t you agree that they are a bit wasteful? They sure are – the spacebar is literally the biggest key in every keyboard (and by much). Don’t you wish it did more than just put a space in between your words?
Synaptics is trying to change the keyboard forever by adding touch functionality to your space key. You heard that right, they want to turn it into a trackpad of sorts, and we are at Computex checking out a demo of this.
They call it SmartBar technology. It allows you do do things like zoom in/out, highlight text, record macros, and more. It’s really quite amazing and leaves us wondering why the hell no one thought of bringing more functionality to the spacebar before. I mean think about it, it’s where our thumbs naturally fall when we are typing. It will make things so much easier!
Now, this is something Synaptics is working to get in the market through its partners, which could be any computer manufacturer. You will pretty much have to get it through your next computer or keyboard maker.
We are not sure how well it will be adopted just yet, but we do know one partner aims to launch the first device with the SmartBar technology by Q4 of 2015. What do you think? Are you considering getting a device with this functionality? Check out the video and let us know in the comments!
