Doing independent research like this is very cool. I admire your willingness to take such a risk and make this sacrifice. One comment I would add is that, while you might be more "productive" solo (less context switching/blocking I assume ;), working with others forces you to maintain a persuasive, crisp story about why what your doing is the right thing. While early, exploratory research can temporarily delay the need for this story, it can't be delayed long!
From the info on your website, it looks like you are developing keyboard layouts that would be useful for people with disabilities. However, I was unable to figure out what your elevator speech for this work might be. What is your hypothesis? What evidence do you have for it? What disability(ies) are you targeting? How will new mobile keyboard help?
Lastly, this looks like a useful project for others (you're not just proving random theorems in your basement :)! Why not re-frame this in your mind as a startup? Good luck!
I am definitely getting input from as many people as I can. Within a month, I'm going to start working with my potential users and their caretakers so that'll be real feedback.
I'm targeting http://ktype.net/wiki/research:disabilities which prevent people from talking or using a keyboard - Stephen Hawkings of the world as well as autistic children with major speech problems. There are many existing solutions out there to help people with disabilities but there are also very wide gaps in between. I'm trying to catalog everything I can find to help fill in the gaps and I will make my own bridges if necessary.
Additionally, I'm working on a vastly better auto-suggest feature: http://ktype.net/wiki/research:articles:progress_20110209 than a cellphone T9. Also, I want to make it work with a variety of hardware input devices. If you are a researcher making a brain-reading interface for paralyzed patients, don't hook it up to Windows! KType will learn from each user's patterns and will be customizable enough to support easy communication. I'm also going to integrate Twitter/email etc. soon enough - http://ktype.net/wiki/dev:roadmap
Don't get me started I can keep talking about this 24/7 :)
From the info on your website, it looks like you are developing keyboard layouts that would be useful for people with disabilities. However, I was unable to figure out what your elevator speech for this work might be. What is your hypothesis? What evidence do you have for it? What disability(ies) are you targeting? How will new mobile keyboard help?
Lastly, this looks like a useful project for others (you're not just proving random theorems in your basement :)! Why not re-frame this in your mind as a startup? Good luck!