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I can't imagine them trying to mesh two plates of carbon fiber carpet together like velcro, although that'd gain the maximum benefit if you could insulate the two from each other. I also can't imagine placing one plate over the other as useful, because you'll just get capacitance from charges stored at one tip vs. the other. I imagine instead they will instead cut the carbon fiber "carpet" into strips and line them up in the same "interlocking finger" pattern you see, for instance, under the pads of buttons on a remote control or keyboard. That way, you get your capacitance side-wall to side-wall. This image shows the configuration I'm speaking of. Imagine vertical columns of nanotubes growing out of the page along the black lines, with dielectric in the white areas. (Granted, I expect the density of these 'fingers' to be much greater in a realistic capacitor.)

I wonder, though, because like-repels-like (as someone else pointed out), how do you engage all the nanotubes, and not just the ones near the edges? The electric fields of all the electrons would tend to push them to the sidewall nanotubes, leaving no charge in the inner nanotubes. You'd have to make very tall, thin columns for this to work.

For comparison, some other special keyboards have prices like, EZ-Reach $100, Kinesis Contour $240, DataHand (very original!) $500.

Maybe this only shows that people are conservative when it comes to keyboards, though the Optimus may easily become mainstream. Well, it's just great! (Though, I'm not buying, since I won't give up the alignment of rows on my current EZ-Reach.)

What we really need are alternatives to traditional typing -- ways to communicate with the computer in a more efficent manner.

I'm personally waiting for the wireless implant in my head so I can just "think" the words onto the screen :)

In the meantime, I've tried out the Twiddler2 chorded keyboard, which is a combination key entry and mouse device. Although a bit slower, it is FAR more comfortable surfing and chording with it than using the traditional keyboard and mouse (though you can forget programming). And it plays nice with OS X and Windows.

If you're interested, there are many other chorded "keyboards" as well as many more ergonomic variations to the standard keyboard. A useful resource is the exhaustive Alternative Keyboard FAQ and this alternative keyboard gallery.

As usual with things like this (and dvorak keyboards), it takes a while to learn, but once you do, you can type pretty fast. Also, it would take up a lot less room, and be much less intrusive than even the smallest "standard" keyboard.

Alternate Laptop Designs

This is what should really go there http://tim.griffins.ca/gallery/laptop/fuck-it-key. jpg

The first time i saw something like this was in college. This guy had taken an old moterola pager and modified it by adding seven keys and some memory so that he could take notes while driving in LA traffic. He called it the "dataegg" and used a mememic method for chording. I've been waiting for it to make it to market but so far in vain. He also left the pager function tied to one of the key sequences so five minutes later it would go off.

You can see several prototypes on the web.
Search google for "dataegg" or look here

The Alternative Keyboard Gallery compares a bunch of commercial and prototype ergonomic keyboards (lots of images -- great resource if your looking for an ergo keyboard).

Alternative Laptop Gallery Lots of cool images!!