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AOL Joins The Hardware Marketeers
Compaq and Dell are among the PC manufacturers who already ship PCs with similar "direct contact" buttons, a calculated bet that convenience and ubiquity are going to beat due diligence on the part of consumers. Embedding a URL in hardware will certainly make alternatives (no matter how easy) just a tad less convenient than the built-in link. I wonder how the linked AOL addresses are embedded in the keyboard, and whether they're alterable. Even if they're not, would it be difficult to set up a layer which "listened" to your keyboard and performed on-the-fly translation when you hit one of those buttons?
At least one of those keys is straightforwardly user-programmable: as the article says, "[D]on't worry; there is one key, with the infantilizing name "My Key," that lets you create a link to any site on the Web." Wow -- users get one key.
AOL may change their mind about shipping these to anyone willing to fork over a few dollars for shipping. For the novelty value, or even for a one-programmable-button keyboard, less than $10 may replace a lot of coffee-ruined keyboards. Then again, the production of AOL come-on CDs doesn't seem to have waned. (But if there's a practical way to hack the pre-set presets, dollars-ta-donuts they pull the deal faster than you can say "Netpliance.")
Be grateful they haven't gotten to "direct-Internet-link" buttons on mice. Yet.
It's not like it is surprising or anything. We've known for quite some time that they intend to make boxes that do nothing except run AOL- this is just the logical predecessor to that box and it's cousins. AOL gets a little practice in distribution and organization for very little skin off their back.
Besides, this isn't really a big threat. It's not like AOL can control HW makers in the same way MS does, especially once they start competing. What should be scary is their newfound control (via TimeWarner) of content. I can always get a box from VA or office depot or any of about a zillion online sites, and I'll be able to get them without AOL keyboards. I won't be able to get whole bunches of movies that the Turner Networks own with that box, though. I may not be able to read Time. And don't forget those NBA contracts... think espn.com might get shutout of the loop anytime soon? That is the kind of domination that has been staring us in the face for months, and that is what we ought to be scared of.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
It seems like it shouldn't be too hard to watch the keycodes that are flying around and system() something when the button press is detected. A program like this would make this and other keyboards' extra buttons somewhat useful (volume control/mute would pro'ly be the best)
The slashdot keyboard...it has /., freshmeat, jennicam and userfriendly
* 4 hot keys for favorite sites, defaults to
* a "submit story" button
* a "first post" button (ac version only)
* a "first post" button (ac version only)
* an lcd karma counter (login version only)
B. coming soon to an e-tailer near you....only $59.95 (or 3 shares of ANDN)
-mark
-mark
If your computer says LINUX, run...computers can't talk! [unless you have text-speech software]
But AOL is the point-of-entry for many people into the net -- come on, even I started out as a brain-dead AOLer for a month or so. AOL is the Ellis Island, the NYC of (often computing and) the Internet. As such, people will buy the keyboard, get lock-in syndrome, and THE ASSIMILATION WILL STOP, which is the importantly sad thing. AOLers are meant to move on, to grow from AOL into mature ISP users. The AOL keyboard would keep them in the womb.
And children don't know any better than to buy what the womb tells them to.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
I would think the coolest keyboard for geeks would be one with a bunch of 'blank' keys. Y'know, labeled with 1, 2, 3, etc..., but completely customizable as to where they went. I know my viewing habits change with the wind, and wouldn't want to be locked in to anything, no matter how perfect for me the presets are at time of purchase.
Simply put, there's nothing good about something you can't change. I want customizability. I mean, really, who wants a proprietary keyboard? No matter how cool it is, not me...
How on earth do you reach the conclusion that a culture that paints on the walls of caves is nonverbal?
I'm not sure I can agree with the assertion that having more and different keys is going to lead to the downfall of civilization. I don't think a couple extra keys on a keyboard could be held accountable for that. Face it, it's not a bad thing. The difference between having a button on the keyboard that loads AOL and an icon on your screen that loads AOL is nil. They both allow a user to open an application by clicking on it. This kind of rant reminds me of my grandfather, who always seemed to have it better in the good ol' days: "sure we had to walk to school, barefoot, through 12 feet of snow in the winter...but we liked it. Now a days you kids have it too easy with your modern school buses and your automobiles."
What's the difference between pressing a key to take you to AOL (or your choice) and having it come up as a homepage? Or, what's the difference between typing in a URL and pointing and clicking it from your bookmarks? Your assertion that it would be useful to have keys for bold, italics, underline etc., doesn't seem to be different in kind from having a key for an internet application.
As far as people limiting their vocabularies to what they can "immediately see." Sounds interesting on first reading, but is it fair to suggest this is what happens? Where does discourse revolving around emotions fit into this model? How about two cavemen agreeing to meet at the hunting grounds the next day? Even such a simple conversation is not limited directly to what they see around them. It involves recognition of man's relation to both spatial and temporal elements.
Perhaps it is more a reflection of the communities you associate with that leads you to see this in people (or conversely, perhaps it's a reflection of the people I associate with that I don't see this). As a rule I think people use language to represent a spectrum of experience far greater than what they simply see around them. Consider the difference between your hypothetical troglodyte pointing at a deer and saying "food" and a level of discourse that is limited simply what people see around them. The recognition of deer as food represents a level of symbolic manipulation that we often overlook: the furry animal is not merely a creature, but a potential dinner. Certainly the discourse is related to what he sees around him, but it is not limited to that, as it refers to internal stimuli (hunger, conceptual recognition that the object can be manipulated) and external stimuli (deer as object). Even if your caveman just points to the deer and says "deer," we still have a rather complex manipulation of symbols going on (on the verbal-language level).
It's a mistake to assume that oral cultures and/or oral people are stupid/suffering because they don't have an extensive (or any) written discourse. The same holds true for iconic discourse. "Do you have any idea how many pictures it would take to have a decent conversation now days?" No. But efficiency is a different issue. If you want to talk about efficiency, do you have any ideas how many words it would take for Michelangelo to describe the images portrayed on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel? I don't think the issue is so much about one method of communication being inherently better than another one, so much as it is a question of difference. It is easy to broadly conflate the issues of quality and difference. History is replete with examples of this as Western cultures came into contact with other cultures.
So, if you don't want a keyboard that will take you to the web page of your choice at the click of a button, fine. But don't assume that your decision not to use that option makes you inherently better than someone who does want/use it.
Thanks, AC, for the food for thought!
synesthesia
Isn't it just sad when M$ decides that the difference betwixt a "Pro" and an "Amateur" is 17 "hot keys"...if i buy one of these Internet Keyboard Pro's do i get to be involved in some sort of corporate sponsorship program?
The following is courtesy of ESPN-3, or "The Thrice"
"Hi, my name is FluX. I surf for microsoft!"
angle shot of a keyboard with 17 (count 'em) hot keys, adorned with various manufacturing stickers including a Microsoft logo and a felt patch from "Tommy's Burrito Shack"
cut to shot of FluX surfing Antionline.com
Annoyingly southern-californian anouncer: "Woah bro! Did you see that McDoubleClick...flawless execution."
cut shot of FluX bitch slapping the announcer with his Internet Keyboard Pro (void in Utah, Nevada, and where prohibited).
-FluX
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
What's different here are the 18 colorful keys lining the top of the keyboard, most of which have generic subject names like "travel" or "auction."
Eighteen control keys is good news. It means that at last we can have really useful Emacs keyboards.
"To spell-check, just hit Auctions-Travel-Q. If you want to spell check against a French dictionary, use Music-Auctions-Travel-Q instead."
Note: I am only partly joking.