Appliance Design - August 2008 - (Page 28)

SWITCHES United Keys’ first product to hit the market will be a computer keyboard with a cluster of nine display keys on the left side of the board. Display keys on a remote control could help simplify its use and appearance. of a larger image, with each one showing a piece of the overall image. In actual practice, however, Brown sees most of his prospects interested in enabling a small number of keys that would change their content. The dynamic capabilities of the technology in effect reduces the number of keys that would need to be enabled. Brown illustrates the point by using a remote control as an example. “A remote control might have 40 different buttons on it to accommodate all of its functions. To make that easier to use, you would not need to enable all the keys with displays. What you would do is enable some of them so that they could display different things at different times, depending on what the user wanted to do. Intelligent software, that understands the context of the users desires, would dramatically reduce the number of static keys needed on the device itself.” Designers also have choices as to the source of content for the displays. The display keys can be driven by the software within a specific product application, by an internal, local area network, or even driven remotely by an Internet connection depending on the product designers’ wishes. When used on a computer keyboard, for example, the user could be working in one application on screen while a display key shows a message from another application. And because the display keys are software driven, the system can be easily customized to a specific application environment. For example, airlines, banks, hospitals, and retail chains, often have specialized software dedicated to their needs. Display keys on computer terminals in such environments could be used to show information unique to that specific use. The software-driven display keys could also allow the upgrading of user-interfaces on appliances already in the field. For example, a fast-food chain typically has cooking or reheating appliances with buttons dedicated to specific menu items, each of which selects a heating program specific to that item. This eliminates the need for a fast-food worker to set time and temperature controls. When menu items change, the appliance must be reprogrammed and the graphics for the buttons physically changed on each appliance at each location in the chain. By using an external network and display keys on its foodservice appliance, a fast-food chain could remotely upgrade the appliance’s program and legends simultaneously throughout its entire network of outlets. Incorporating display keys into networked devices would also benefit the 28 applianceDESIGN August 2008 www.applianceDESIGN.com http://www.appliancedesign.com

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Appliance Design - August 2008 Contents Editorial Shipments/Forecasts News Watch Plastics Switches Noise & Vibration Control Joining New Products Design Marts Association Report: CEA Advertiser’s Index

Appliance Design - August 2008

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