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Wrap up your SPV in its keyboard, joystick ...

One-handed keyboard operation not for you? Wrap up your troubles in your new keyboard, and type, type, type!

The picture on the left is the mystery one; the picture on the right is supposed to reveal all. It's a keyboard, yes; but a fabric one.

Eleksen of Cambridge makes these electro-sensitive fabrics for users of portable devices; they work almost the same as real keyboards, but without the moving parts. This model is a prototype, not to be sold for a few months, perhaps; but it was shown at the MDC in Paris this week. It really does make it possible to use a full QWERTY keyboard with a phone and put it all in a small pocket afterwards.

Using the keyboard takes some practice. The "rollover" isn't good, and so you have to make sure you stop pressing one "key" before you press the next. But for most two-fingered typists, this isn't an issue. And if you aren't used to drumming your fingers on a flat, unmoving surface, you may well bruise your fingertips for a few minutes.

The other thing you need to make sure you know before setting out, is "how to turn off the click." The idea of a click is a nice one; it makes the bit of cloth more like a real keyboard if every keystroke makes a sound. But it's not necessarily what you want to do in a quiet room; people will look at you. And that's not the moment to wish you'd brought the manual along, too.

The final picture is something else again; it's a joystick. It's designed to let you play action games - if joystick-enabled - on your SPV. It's squishy, and you bend it from side to side like a stick of rubber. Very, very weird ...

That will be sold through Orange, bundled with the games; my guess is it will add less than 50 pounds to the price, but nobody had decided that yet, when I asked.