Touch-type keyboard with character selection through finger location on multifunction keys

1. An apparatus comprising:

a keyboard for touch typing having a home row of locations for each of 8 fingers to rest concurrently, and providing single stroke access to every letter of a full alphabet, the keyboard having a plurality of mechanical keys, each key having a surface area for actuation by a finger, and each key maps to at least three functions and each key can move at least 1.0 mm responsive to sufficient pressure by the finger, wherein the key surface remains substantially parallel to a rest plane while the key moves to access each letter associated with the key, and wherein the rest plane is a plane defined by the key surface in the absence of an actuation force; and

wherein each function is associated with a sensing zone that is defined by a virtual boundary circumscribing a portion of the surface area of the physical key; and

wherein a key function is selected based on the location of the finger relative to the sensing zones during actuation of the key; and

wherein at least some adjacent sensing zones overlap one another such that an intersection of their virtual boundaries circumscribes a subportion of the surface of the key; and

wherein when a single zone is completely covered by the finger during actuation, the input resolves to a single function associated with that zone.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a plurality of capacitive sensors at least one of which is uniquely associated with each key, to allow determination of a specific sublocation of a finger within a surface bounded by a perimeter of the key.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a visual display with a plurality of elements within one or more zones, each element having at least two visual states, wherein in one state the display is substantially imperceptible relative to a remainder of a key surface, and in another state the display is visible.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the surface of a key contains a local tactile feature fixed in relation to the zones within the key, which feature allows a user to recognize a location within the key surface by touch.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the local tactile features are concave wells arranged in correspondence to 8 user fingertip locations defining home row positions for the touch type keyboard.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a controller to dynamically remap the size and location of one or more of the zones.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the keyboard can operate in an environment containing plural wireless hosts, and wherein a user input defines which host is selected to receive the output from the keyboard.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein a sum of the individual areas defined by the virtual boundaries of the sensing zones is greater than the total surface area of the physical key.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the keyboard has a deployed configuration and a collapsed configuration and wherein the collapsed configuration can fit within a bounding volume of less than 180 cubic centimeters.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 further comprising:

a controller within the keyboard, wherein the controller retains a user-defined password; and

wherein the controller can automatically send a user-defined password to the selected host in both the deployed and collapsed configuration without the need for a manual password entry or biometric input.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein a zone of actuation of the finger may overlap with multiple zones and a single function is selected by at least in part interpreting the pattern of finger overlap with the multiple zones.