http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4559Art. Lebedev Studio has announced a new product, similar to that of the Optimus keyboard which we continue to await eagerly. The Optimus Mini Three is similar in concept to the Optimus Keyboard, but it's smaller and only has three keys (who'd have guessed.)
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Very nice
And there was me thinking that this might be a Transformers story...
Me too.Originally Posted by Splash
That still looks pretty sweet. If they can rig it right it would be oretty damn sweet, not sure if its worth 60 quid though.
I dunno, I think there's a real demand for it...
OK, OK...look, someone had to do it...
I think the way around this is to have a quantity of on-board flash ram built into the keyboard to store all your settings, keyboard themes etc, which should then take care of what happens if you plug it into a different computer etc..Speculating a little, if the Mini Three's 90x90 keys are being updated five times a second, then a quick number crunch suggests that's around 15kB/sec of data going to the device. Create a full sized Optimus and that works out in the region of 600kB/s. So, the USB 1 controller used by the Mini Three could conceivably still work for big bro. Of course, Art. Lebedev might go for a different approach, but it's fun for us to sit and work out what it takes the drive such a device.
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Thats actually one of the suggestions on the site.I dunno, I think there's a real demand for it...
OK, OK...look, someone had to do it...
speculation
if their just using bob standard HID class, you could get away with 15kb/sec flawlessly on USB Low speed.
but not 600kb/sec.
However, if they've done it properly, then they'd of used a different type of xfer mode (the name of which escapes me, its been about 18 months since i made a USB firmware sorry!) which is for things such as multimedia, here the bus schedules a window for data xfer to happen. This is required for flawless playback of video.
Whilst you might hope that if your spending enough money for an oled for each key, you'd get a controller capable of driving them all in animation, i wouldn't bet on it. 8294400pixels is a heck of a lot to drive in a fassion that can have animation all at once. Hopefully if they cheap out on the controller, they'll be cunning enough so you can have say 5 animating at once.
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the pricing is actually pretty competitive compared to a 2-line VFD.
i'll wait for a library to allow it to be poked about with from linux.
Regarding the keyboard....
"Organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) in our screens last for 5000 hours of continuous use. The screen saving mode is designed to extend the keyboard’s lifetime."
So, 208 days...
Although this 'screen saving mode' I assume kicks in when you are not using it, so, lets say i'm using it an average of 35 hours a week, that makes it errr... 142 weeks, so nearly three years... yeah that seems ok.
library to poke around from linux, well assuming they've used standard usb classes that wouldn't be hard to make........... oh wait, yes it would, linux has no HAL worth talking about! Anyway they seam like mac so bound to have OSX support, so probably linux too and most likely BSD.
As for screen saving mode, they might be using a PWM to extend the life, apparently this really helps, i don't know enough about oled tech to say how turn ons and off effect life span, but most devices run oleds at about a 10% dutey cycle. assume that hour life still applies to the few us each led is on, you'll get 5+ years of constant use. If they've implemented a complete turn off screen saver, then normal use 15+ years. As this thing is for each led then it would look like inverse burn in on CRTs do, so simply moving the symbol for each key would last longer.
But that would be my fear, them going dim, the life quoted is till half brightness, now remeber you see light as log so half brightness dosen't appear like that to humans, if you change your pattern and have, say a white background, you'd notice the faint impression of what used to be. That is the reason I'd not buy one, until their cheap enough to be desposable.
So its not how long it lasts, but how long before you see old flames
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