There are few things more ubiquitous in technology than QWERTY keyboards. If you type anywhere, you almost definitely type QWERTY. But why? It seems that, almost objectively, the keyboards we use are definitely not optimized. Commonly used keys are too difficult to achieve; Your fingers must move side to side an excessive amount of; overall it requires way an excessive amount of exercise. There are a million theories as to why the QWERTY keyboard was invented – the preferred of which is that its creator desired to be certain that that the mechanisms of an old typewriter would not collide with one another while you hit the keys – but almost everyone agrees that it wasn’t best way. And yet, after several many years of use, few people want to alter it.
In this episode of The Vergecast, we share the story of one man’s two-year journey to construct a keyboard – and a recent layout – from scratch, and what that journey can teach us about how we interact with all of our technology.
Next, we check with The Verge’s Tom Warren concerning the recent shake-up at Microsoft and whether the corporate’s approach to artificial intelligence is admittedly working. We’re also attempting to work out what the hell an “AI computer” is, but I’m unsure we’ll ever figure it out. We’re also trying to seek out out what the Surface line will bring and the way essential these devices will probably be for Microsoft in the longer term.
Finally, we help the listener learn how you can evaluate a documentary about World War II that they didn’t like but still wish to see more of. We get help from a Netflix executive and offer some recommendations on how you can tell the algorithm what you want and what you don’t love.
For more on this topic on this episode, listed below are some links to get you began, starting with Jonas Hietala’s keyboard adventure:
Credit : www.theverge.com
