The best keyboard you've ever laid eyes on

[alterion]

Option 4: Apple
this sounds like just the kind of product apple would snap up stylish cool innovative capable of making shedloads of money, good high end mac accesory.. they bought out the idea for ipod's/Itunes from someone.. so expect a preety high price tag (~£250-300) but the superb styling and finsh oif the full one and little customizeation at first on pc until someone develops a windows control / apple release one after a period of mac exclusivity

[Dougal]

The only thing with Apple producing it is that it will be Mac only for the first year or two. Then made for PC versions.

And PC's would probably get more use out of it.

[directhex]

i think it would be percieved as too complicated for apple users.

[Lee H]

I want one

Its not heat sensitive yet fella

[Mblaster]

I'd love one of love keyboards! But for it to work well it would need to be very versitile. E.g. when playing games you could have all the cutomised key images, but then when you hit the talk key, it should switch back to the normal letter keys and back again, for things like that to be not very complicated it would need support of the game IMO.

[VCS]

I was doing some unrelated research last night and I found a company that makes switches very, very similar to the keys this model seems to use -- could not find the exact switch, judging by the bezel design. But at least this type of technology is not only possible, but in production. It is unlikely that the ones in the model are working anyway, probable just mockups.

Tech:
The ones I found are a 36 x 24 pixel, LED backlit LCD panel. The switch it self is guaranteed to last for a minimum of 3 million electromechanical actuations. The LCD itself has a half life 50K hours (5.5 years); after that they still work but start to draw more current.

Cost:
The hope for anything like this around 100 to 150 pounds (~176-264 dollars here in the states) should be given up now. Even someone’s guess of 350 pounds (616 USD), I think is way too low. What I found had a cost of 40 dollars (22.7 pounds) per button! So that makes the costs of the buttons for a normal keyboard around 4,200 dollars... that’s 2,386 pounds. That doesn't even consider the larger keys such as the shift and space are bigger and therefore would be more expensive. Nor does it consider the micro-controller cost, manufacturing, etc, etc... Seems to me, around 3000-3500 pounds would be a closer estimate. Damn! I’d spend up to 1000 pounds, I think, for something this cool. But if it ever goes into productions, I don’t think we’d see a price tag close to that. Time will tell…

Maybe getting a couple for a little case moding would be more in all of our budgets.

[Steve]

The hope for anything like this around 100 to 150 pounds (~176-264 dollars here in the states) should be given up now. Even someone’s guess of 350 pounds (616 USD), I think is way too low. What I found had a cost of 40 dollars (22.7 pounds) per button! So that makes the costs of the buttons for a normal keyboard around 4,200 dollars... that’s 2,386 pounds. That doesn't even consider the larger keys such as the shift and space are bigger and therefore would be more expensive. Nor does it consider the micro-controller cost, manufacturing, etc, etc... Seems to me, around 3000-3500 pounds would be a closer estimate. Damn! I’d spend up to 1000 pounds, I think, for something this cool. But if it ever goes into productions, I don’t think we’d see a price tag close to that. Time will tell…

Fair comment, but prices will drop over time as the manufacturing process is refined and mass production becomes possible.

[alterion]

well it wouldn;t go into production at thta pric.. fact isd it would not be commercialy viable at £2000 ect.. i mean for 2 grand would your ict department buy1 glorified keyboard or a 21' wacom graphic monitor for thier design department.. its not going to save a company any money or enhace thier porductivity so it would never surface

[VCS]

Fair comment, but prices will drop over time as the manufacturing process is refined and mass production becomes possible.

True, true... But these switches have already been in production for ~4 to 5 years.

If prices could be cut 75% of these estimates, it would be way out of the budget of most users… esp. for a keyboard. Comes down to supply and demand. Even a cut of 90% results in a price point which 1 to none of the geeks I know would spend the money.

Without that demand for it, there won’t be mass production. Without mass production the cost doesn’t move much. Repeat.

^^ Like alterion ways saying.

I think we can agree that for years this technology will continue to be expensive.

[autopilot]

OH...MY...GOD.

I would sell my entire family on eBay to get one of those. Just stunning, completely and utterly awesome. Beautiful does not even come close.

Not only is it beautiful, but it has endless posibilties for functionality. Apart from obvious gaming, it could also be the answer to helping end users who are not so computer savvy use systems more easily. How about changing languages for different nationalities. Or disabled people. Why has no one done this before? It has soooo many posible uses, not just as a srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy PC. This is a truely brilliant idea that could change the landscape of computing.

As for cost, if mass produced it could be relativly cheap. Look at phone screens and how cheap they are to produce. But they will charge a lot for them at first. Why? Because they can. Like with any new technology people would pay silly money for one. I would probably pay up to £200 right now.

I think that this could really take off. So much so that in 10-20 years i really think they could be a mainstream everyday product. Maybe less. We might not hear any more of this keyboard for a few years, but i really think this could be the future for data input (before mind control anyway!).


Of course there is one other major application for this keyboard. More important than anything else; You can get rid of the stupid 'windows' key! Rejoice!



"Where's the ANY key?"

"Oh, there it is."

[iMc]

Do the keys automatically change when you open each program, assuming you have created a profile or something for it?

[iMc]

Well I think its a mock up concept, but if I were designing the software, then yeah, do it depending on which window is in focus, as you could have word open, and photoshop or a browser etc.

That would rock Only thing is I bet your keyboard would crash and you would get hundreds of little BSOD.

[Xaneden]

It would really need to be 'hard coded' into windows, and supported in the same way basic PS/2 devices are if it was to ever take off. As I said before, it would have to be licensed to MS and Logitech etc if that was to ever happen.

[Dougal]

It would really need to be 'hard coded' into windows, and supported in the same way basic PS/2 devices are if it was to ever take off. As I said before, it would have to be licensed to MS and Logitech etc if that was to ever happen.

Doesn't have to be.

The keyboard itself should be USB i think, but they hardest problem will be powering all those LCDs off 5v 500ma, which is only 2.5W....

The keyboard could just have basics hardcoded into it and the buttons on the far left can be used to start some apps, say iTunes as they have on the mock up.

When the buttons pressed the keyboard knows that iTunes is running, loads up its internal data and the images are there to use.

[directhex]

i imagine it would revert to a basic en_US layout without drivers installed, if manufactured

[Stoo]

More info on the company website:

Frequently Answered Answers about the Optimus keyboard
It's in initial stage of production
We hope it will be released in 2006
It will cost less than a good mobile phone
It will be real
It will be OS-independent (at least it can work in some default state with any OS)
It will support any language or layout
Moscow is the capital of Russia
Each key could be programmed to produce any sequence
It will be an open-source keyboard, SDK will be available
Some day it will be split ('ergonomic')
It will most likely use OLED technology (e-paper is sooo slow)
Our studio is located two blocks from the Kremlin
It will feature a key-saver
Keys will use animation when needed
It has numeric keypad because we love it
There's no snow in Moscow during Summer
It will be available worldwide (why not?)
OEM will be possible (why not?)
Contact us for hi-res images, or interview inquires

We want to thank everyone for the support. Stay tuned for our next projects

Looking good then, especially for hexxy as the sdk will be open source for those linux freaks out there

Candidate for an exclusive HEXUS interview?