Goals

The goals of the Global Keyboard Open Standard - GKOS

GKOS is a physical keyboard on the back of a small device, operated by six fingers. It is supposed to help design completely new types of user interfaces for cellphones and other small mobile equipment. GKOS can also be a virtual chorded keyboard on a multi-touch screen operated by thumbs.

Those who bother to learn the GKOS method can enter a new dimension of messaging, namely, the ability to chat, email and send text messages with a small device at the same speed as with the PC - but while being mobile. There is a learning curve before considerable text entry speeds can be obtained but a lot is gained by having the skill. You can even touch type with your thumbs on a smart phone touch-screen, keeping your eyes on the text, holding the device in landscape position.

No eye-stress, spectacles or magnifying glass. No need to keep on teaching your predictive phone new words. No separate special tools (stylus, pen) to loose. Back to typing in a creative way and fast but now while mobile. In addition to the many operational advantages obtained, a device even with the physical GKOS keypad can be made very small and solid, it does not look too peculiar to show in public, its use is discrete, it is unambiguous, fast and does not require any preparations before use. A collection of advantages is shown under the 'GKOS basics' menu item above.

Speech and text messaging have traditionally been the most popular applications of mobile phones. Camera and web applications are things of today. How about being able to type addresses on your GPS device while keeping your hands on the steering wheel and an eye on the traffic? A physical GKOS keypad on the wheel makes that possible.

The clumsy text entry methods and fuzzy small displays with tiny characters have not been able prevent texting from getting popular. Now, as smartphones with great displays are getting commonplace, and the web access has become mobile, it is probable that mobile typing will be required even more. The goal of GKOS is to turn the flaws of text entry on small devices into things of the past.

The GKOS keyboard has already been tested successfully with prototypes and smart phone applications using Korean and several Latin alphabets, including Greek and Russian character sets. There are also GKOS keyboard on-screen applications available for iPhones and Android phones with layouts for several languages. It is expected that native languages with completely different characters or symbols will have their own character sets defined as well, in order to make GKOS truely global. For example, we already have Korean, Russian and Greek layouts available among others (in the Android application).

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