Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Their screens lacked color and their apps lacked Internet access, but one thing the PDAs of yore had in common with the smartphones of today was text input that couldn't compare to a full-sized keyboard. The challenge, of course, is that full-sized keyboards generally aren't very good traveling companions for pocket-sized devices. In 2000, a startup called ThinkOutside addressed the issue with the first Stowaway keyboard, an ingeniously designed folding keyboard that used the dock co
