Coolest. Keyboard. Ever!

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Behold!
I present to you, the Optimus Keyboard (http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/).

I'm not sure if it's real and/or if they're for sale, but damn I want one!

[Ghoulish Delight]

That's bleepin' awesome.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Wooooooo. :eek:

[Morrigoon]

Whoa, and here I thought the light-up ones were so cool. WOW.

[Chernabog]

So the keyboard changes depending on what program you use??? COOL.

Just pound that donkey button to get pictures of ass. Gives one handed typing a whole new level of excitement!

[BarTopDancer]

I want!

[Not Afraid]

I juet bet the paint on the keys wouldn't rub off like it has on mine - very quickly. That's what i need - a keyboard without paint.

Chris can't figure out why I am so hard on my keyboards.

[Moonliner]

I did a bit of a Google hunting, it looks like this is just a prototype (aka mock up) from a Russian industrial design company. However given the amount of buzz this thing seems to be creating it's a safe bet in a year or two you will be able to have one on your desk for just a bit more than you are willing to pay for it.

Now excuse me while I RUN down to the patent office and apply for a patent on a self configuing keyboard useing OLED keys...

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Yeah, they're Russian. There's some great bad English on their site.

[Moonliner]

Yeah, they're Russian. There's some great bad English on their site.

Oh you don't have to wander so far from home just for that! All you need to do is search for all my old posts right here on LoT. :)

[TheatreTech]

SHINY!

[Monorail Man]

Just pound that donkey button to get pictures of ass.

That's actually for EMule (www.emule.com).

This IS cool. I could so see using this much like the touch screen on the DS. You could sync them up, and fully play games with an interactive keyboard. I wonder if this Prototype actually works. This is a product I would actually pay $300 for.

[BarTopDancer]

SHINY!

WHERE?!?!?!

[mhrc4]

damn cool :cool:

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Looks like we might be able to rap our little fingers on this puppy beginning next month...!
http://puregenio.us/story/17/

[innerSpaceman]

Yes, I've seen increasing buzz about this just lately ... but, um ... what am I missing? What is the big deal abou this keyboard? I don't get anything unusual about it from looking at the Optimus website. Is it that it has backlit keys? What?


Edited to add: Ok, now that I seem to have learned what's so cool about this keyboard, I just don't see what's so cool about it. The backlit keys can be reassigned to anything you want? What use is that?

Unless I want to learn to type by touch ALL OVER AGAIN, or relearn every hotkey combination I've saved in my fingertip memory over the past two decades, why would I want to reprogram any more than perhaps 3 keys on my keyboard?

Um, not worth $200.

Frankly, I'm looking for a tricked out keyboard to go with my new, tricked out computer. As with the computer itself, I won't hesitate to spend money for glitz and amazing functionality.

I don't see how the Optimus has either.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Not backlit...LED, they will display any image you program it to display on the keys.

[innerSpaceman]

Sorry, see my edit. How many keys could you possibly reprogram without having to re-learn typing?

[Moonliner]

I kind of have to agree with ISM here... A high "cool" factor but is it all that useful?

I could see it for say a hardcore gamer. Load Microsoft flight simulator and all of a sudden your keyboard looks like the actual controls or at least itty-bitty versions of them...

Could make for a cool screen saver. When you are not typing your keyboard turns into a waterfall...

If you are REALLY into mood/style I guess you could have the keyboard with say the LoT color scheme...

If application programmers got in on this you could have programs that SHOW you what key to press "Yo! Dummy. THIS key" or only show keys for options that are currently avaliable.

Overall I'll take a wait and see on this.

[Moonliner]

Not backlit...LED, they will display any image you program it to display on the keys.

Not LED....OLED (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-oled.htm), an important difference.

[Alex]

Actually, OLED not LED, but that's not an important difference for most people.

Lebedev is an interesting industrial design firm, but until they actually announce a manufacturer for this keyboard I'm keeping it filed in the vaporware category, though I'm sure someone will produce somehting like this eventually (and there are already a few do-it-yourself solutions out there).

But I can't imagine that even if it were really cheap that I'd have much use for it. I touchtype very fast, I never look at my keyboard. Years ago when I had reason to type in Cyrillic I had a macro that reprogrammed the keys on my keyboard and then I touchtyped on that. Visual queues for what key I'm pressing serve no function.

You can already do all the reprogramming of keyboards this offers on standard keyboards, it is just the changeable pictures that's new. If you're a person who goes through and customizes all the icons on your desktop then I can see this being neat, but if you're like me and it doesn't matter what the icon is just so long as I instantly know where it is (the Windows recycle bin icon is visually distinctive but if someone moves it from the lower right corner of the desktop then I flail about like a two-year-old for a couple seconds until I find it again).

Ergonomically, this thing looks bad as well (though they promise that a later version will be ergonomic). As shown in the Photoshop drawings (and those are what you're looking at, not even a manufactured prototype) all the keys are flat-surfaced and the keyboard seems to be set at a fixed angle. Finally, if one of the cooler things about it is instant visual conversion to other languages, they need to add some extra keys in the main typing area since the most common alternative languages have more letters in their alphabet than standard English.

So I'm more in Steve's camp. It's technologically cool that it can be done (whether it can be done for less than $500 seems in doubt) but it doesn't seem useful except in very specialized circumstances.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I generally agree...unless you're a hardcore gamer.

This image says it all...
http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/qua.jpg

As games have gotten more complex, the need to memorize vast numbers of keyboard shortcuts has increased. Even games I play addictively, I tend to forget a shortcut on occasion, gets very annoying. This would surely help.

Of course, I don't game nearly enough to make it worh $200 (or $100, or $50...), but I could see where someone might want it.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I never said it was the most useful keyboard ever or even that it was worth the high price tag. I just think it's damn cool. ;) :cool: :p

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Just FYI, I am a hugh iconophile. I love collecting and customizing icons. All of my important folders have customized graphics. So the option to customize/change every single one of my keyboard keys gives me a big ol' geek woody!

That said, you are more than welcome to yawn at the Optimus Keyboard. ;)

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, I can see it being useful for gamers. I am not one. Some people think I'm a tool for buying the computer I just bought because it's a gamers wet dream ... but I happen to believe it will prove very useful to me as well, being beyond the kind of computer you can buy off the shelf.

Optimus seems gamer-only. Less than optimus for me, that's all.

[Alex]

I am a gamer (to some degree) and I still don't see it being useful for me. I don't know, maybe I just have a good memory for these things but even in World of Warcraft where just about every key is bound to three or four different commands and I have dozens of macros, I still touchtype the game, never looking at my keyboard.

I've tried those custom game keyboards you can buy (for those who don't game, you can buy special keyboards that have been designed specifically for a particular game) and always end up back at the regular keyboard.

But conceptually it is very cool. Particularly if what it displays can be contextualized to what you see on the screen. If you can do that, then the keyboard becomes a power point of contact user-interface guidance in moving novice users through a series of tasks.

For example, in filling out a form, the first question might be for your name, so all the numbers and most punctuation keys go dark and disabled (reducing data entry errors). The next question is SSN and every key but the numbers goes dark. The next question asks if this is your first time filling out the form and only two buttons are active, one saying "Yes" and the other saying "No."

I can see this being a very useful solution and potentially much cheaper than the touch screens currently used in many similar situations.

[Moonliner]

Oh, I can see it being useful for gamers. I am not one. Some people think I'm a tool for buying the computer I just bought because it's a gamers wet dream ... but I happen to believe it will prove very useful to me as well, being beyond the kind of computer you can buy off the shelf.

Optimus seems gamer-only. Less than optimus for me, that's all.

Alright you tease, enough already, spill it. Preferably with pictures.

[Ghoulish Delight]

But conceptually it is very cool. Particularly if what it displays can be contextualized to what you see on the screen. Now there's a good thought. If each program could interface automatically with the keyboard, loading a profile at application install, there are some real possibilities. Install and launch a game, and voila you've got the shortcuts right there, the very first use. Even if you're good at retaining them in the long run, that would surely speed the learning curve. Or, launch any MS Office application, hit "ctrl", and icons for all the keyboard shortcuts appear. Again, the key to that being useful would be the ability for the application installer to create and activate the varying layouts automatically, rather than the user tediously having to hunt down icons and assign them manually for each application they want to use.

[Kevy Baby]

I think NA already has one and it is programed to randomly change key assignments while typing.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Here's a good concern...how easy is to to clean? Keyboards can get pretty damned grimey, and somehow I'm betting "pop the keys off, scrub them with a toothbrush" isn't going to cut if for this thing.

[Moonliner]

Here's a good concern...how easy is to to clean? Keyboards can get pretty damned grimey, and somehow I'm betting "pop the keys off, scrub them with a toothbrush" isn't going to cut if for this thing.

Interesting thought, in theory you could build sealed keys with snap-in connections so they could be pried loose like a normal keyboard. However I'd guess that will be a "version 2.0" feature. Also if you did that would it matter what order you put the keys back on it? I'd guess not.

[Alex]

Since I touchtype, I did that once after cleaning my keyboard. Put all the keys back on in a random order.

Two things I learned amazed me:

1) How often other people used my keyboard, and
2) Just how few people who make their living typing into a computer can touch type.

As for cleaning, making keys that pop up for cleaning probably wouldn't be an issue, but the connector on the keyboard would likely be much more fragile than on current keyboards. Currently you just need a knob that presses down. That's pretty difficult to break, with this the connector woul have to have the ability to pass digital information and would be much more susceptible to soiling when exposed by removing the key above it.

$200 (at least) is a very expensive keyboard on which to spill Coke.

[Ghoulish Delight]

2) Just how few people who make their living typing into a computer can touch type.You'd be more amazed at just how many people who make their living testing computers don't know how to use one at all.

[Not Afraid]

I think NA already has one and it is programed to randomly change key assignments while typing.

:p

[Moonliner]

The first version of the OLED keyboard (just three keys) has been released.

Here is a quote from the review (http://tweakers.net/reviews/650):


Apparently the drivers crash a lot, consume way to much CPU, the device is capable of only 3 frames per second, and the packaging makes the images look far more crisp than the actual device. And with a price tag of over $100


Sigh. Once again reality steps in to quash a dream.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Yes, but did you read the last page?The many little disappointments and disadvantages will give a lot of potential customers good reason to reconsider spending their money on this gem, but there will be quite a few that will ignore these problems because of the most important positive thing: the gadget factor. Gadget quality seems to be the most important, if not the only, trump of the Optimus Mini Three.So yes, not perfect, but potentially quite nice.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

If a gadget doesn't work as promised, it's not a gadget, it's a waste of money. I hope 2.0 will be better.

[Alex]

Yeah, this seems pure gadget with no actual value added functionality yet.

I'm pretty strongly of the view that unless my employer is paying for it there is no keyboard on earth worth more than $9. So they'll have a long way to come down on price for me.

Plus, my computer came with a keyboard that has 12 customizable keys (function-wise, not visually) and I've never touched them.