A Practical Pressure Sensitive Computer Keyboard

Summary:
Although there have been many successful advancements in the realm of computers, successful computer keyboards have only had minor changes made to them since their discovery. The problem with many of the advancements that could replace keyboards is that many of them have very significant cost barriers which prevent their use for the masses. This problem is solved with the design of pressure sensitive keyboard which uses sensors that are based on pressure sensitive ink which is placed under each key. The old version of keyboards uses a flexible membrane/rubber dome which provides a tactile sensation. When a key is pressed, the stack of 3 membranes deform through the hole in the spacer layer and make contact with the bottom sheet signifying that a button has been pressed. In this new version when a key is pressed, the top contact deforms through the spacer and makes more or less contact with the bottom layer depending on the pressure applied. This is achieved through the use of piezoresistive material, which is a special type of material that changes its resistence based on pressure. The pressure sensitive keyboard is a matrix of variable resisters, which each connect to a unique row and column. This will make the keyboard independently measure each resistor.
This design fixes the problem of "ghosting" (pressing multiple keys in the same row or column shorts another row). The basic idea of a pressure sensitive keyboard is to control the intensity of the pressure applied to each key and get extra information from it. The pressure sensitivity will allow users to express emotion through typing. Hard pressing to make bigger letters or bold font as well as pressing harder to run faster in a game. Some advantages of this design: Can be manufactured at a modest price, looks and feels like a regular keyboard, pressure sensitivity can be enabled in software which would allow users to use the new design at their own pace.

Discussion:
I think this is a very interesting idea and an important area of research because the potential uses of this would be very useful and would make using a keyboard more intuitive. I would like to see the pressure sensitivity used in a game as well. I think this would be very interesting because it is just natural if a monster is chasing you to want to run faster and press the keys harder. Overall I thought this was an interesting paper.