keyboard

Like your iPad well enough but wish you lived in the heyday of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg? The iTypewriter lets you go all angel-headed-hipster on your tablet.

Austin Yang, a product and industrial designer in Edinburgh, Scotland, conceived of the iProduct as a way to merge new with nostalgia. Just slide your iPad into the landscape iPad dock like a piece of blank paper and start typing. Little mechanical hammers with protective coverings align with the touch-screen keys on your iPad to deliver a tiny electronic discharge as you click-clack away. … Read more

Keyboard shortcuts can help you become more efficient with e-mail, Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook and more. If you're an Evernote user and love using keyboard shortcuts, you'll be happy to know that you can use Evernote almost entirely from the keyboard. Here are some of the more useful keyboard shortcuts in Evernote for Windows:

General Application Ctrl + N : create a new note Ctrl + Shift + N : create a new notebook Ctrl + Shift + T : create a new tag F10 : toggle left panel display F11 : toggle note list display Ctrl + F11 : toggle note panel display F5 : cycle note list views Ctrl + F5 : … Read more

Thursday's tech news roundup is feeling square:

In the search for more money, YouTube is adding video commercials to play before videos on smartphones and tablets. These ads will play for five seconds before users can skip right to the video. As we spend more time on mobile devices, it's only natural for advertising to migrate. Android users will be the first to see pre-roll ads, since the YouTube iPhone app cannot show ads. But that will change in the next YouTube app version for iOS 6.

The Google+ network has updated its sliders. The feature, found in … Read more

Good keyboards are a valued asset in the laptop world, and they're starting to become a major factor in the tablet landscape, too. The iPad has its Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover; Microsoft Surface has its Type Cover. Perhaps Synaptics should get into the Windows 8 tablet keyboard landscape, too. … Read more

Sprint and Virgin Mobile announced today that they will carry the Kyocera Rise, a slideout QWERTY keyboard phone that we first caught a glimpse of in May during CTIA 2012.

In addition to its four-row keyboard, the Rise runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It has a 3.5-inch LCD display, a 1,500mAh li-ion battery (which roughly translates to 8.5 hours of reported talk time), and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

The handset also has a 3.2-megapixel rear-facing camera with accompanying flash, and an Eco Mode feature that allows users to customize and conserve battery … Read more

Twice in the last month I had to become reacquainted with Microsoft Office because a company I was working with required a genuine Office file. Both experiences made me appreciate Google Drive's simple, straightforward apps all over again.

Yes, there are tasks Google Drive's word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program can't handle well or at all, but for 99.9 percent of the files I work on, Google Drive fits the bill nicely. Here are five ways to use Google Drive to shave minutes off your workday.

Keyboard shortcut opens a list of keyboard shortcuts After a … Read more

Hate thumbing e-mails on your phone? Japan's Elecom is launching One2Touch's portable keyboard that connects with your handset via near field communication (NFC). When you don't need it, just fold it up and slip it into your pocket.

Announced earlier this year, the silicone rubber accessory is billed as the word's first full-size keyboard for smartphones that does without cables, pairing, and battery charging; the internal battery lasts about 18 months. … Read more

Editors' note: This article was originally published on July 26, 2012, and updated August 10 with more details.

When we first heard of Motorola's upcoming Motorola Photon Q, we thought that the keyboarded Android smartphone would serve as a nice lifeline for disillusioned and disenfranchised BlackBerry refugees fleeing the sinking ship.

Running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich and driven by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, the Motorola Photon Q will certainly surpass Motorola's Droid 4.

While the Droid 4 proved that a QWERTY slider could indeed pack in a swift 4G LTE radio, nimble components, and an excellent physical keyboard, it also suffers from a few shortcomings. First, at half an inch thick and weighing a hefty 6.31 ounces, the phone is big and heavy. Second, the Droid 4 still lives in a time warp, mired by the outdated Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.

Thankfully, the Motorola Photon Q boasts fresher features.… Read more

Not to be left out of the coming Windows 8, tablet-focused excitement, Microsoft's hardware group has an assortment of new mobile input devices to show off this morning.

The four new devices, all Bluetooth-driven, are aimed squarely at mobile Windows 8 tablets and laptops. Microsoft says they will also work with iOS and Android tablets, which helps explain why it made sense to release them before Windows 8's debut on October 26.

Wedge Mobile Keyboard Of the three new products, the Wedge Mobile Keyboard is the most interesting. The thick rubber sleeve helps protect the keyboard in transit. Once you take the keyboard out, the sleeve then folds in half to create an adjustable tablet stand.… Read more