Optimus Keyboard With OLED Display Keys

Koskun writes "What appears to be a Russian design company has on their website a keyboard in which the keys are using OLED to display what function the keys represent. The product is Art. Lebedev Studio's Optimus Keyboard. The uses of this could be amazing. They have pictures of layouts for Photoshop and Quake, as well as a QWERTY and Russian. Here's hoping that this will make it to a production model and not just a design model."

Comments

Virtual Keyboards == LCARS?

[bc90021]

It will be handier and handier to have virtual keyboards, and in fact, they obviously already exist.

However, soon enough, as with other inventions, it just may be that we get a glass panel in front of us, and the display/input conforms to the user and his/her function, instead of the other way around. ;)

Comment + mirror

[winkydink]

It looks like most of their portfolio makes it into production, but I can't
help but wonder just how much a keyboard like this would cost?

Also, OLED's have a short life. 1-2 years.

Mirror here

International users and public terminals

[ScArE2100]

This is an amazing idea for international users at public terminals. Just sit down and select your character set and you're off and running with a keyboard taylored to your needs. I forsee this being in airports and trainstations; even somewhat computer illiterate people could use it to be able to seemlessly type in there language.

Although the price might render this idea problematic...

Lottsa uses for this

[Mr. Cancelled]

But the one that intrigues me the most is the fact that I share a keyboard between a Mac and a PC using Synergy, and the keys aren't mapped identically between both machines. This would be very handy to have my keyboard visually show me what's what, dependant upon which computer has the keyboards focus at that time.

Not to mention that I'm a shortcut junkie, and a visual kinda guy... This has "productivity increase" written all over it!

But the bad news is that the keyboard appears to be just a prototype at this point. Hopefully demand will quickly bring it to market soon! (preferably at less than $200 - It looks kinda expensive). There's a rather good thread on it over at digg, from earlier today.

OLED?

[Pyrosz]

I would think that the new e-paper technologies would be better suited as they maintain the image with the power off. This would enable the keyboard to only use power while the keys are changed (or if they are animated), and of course the wireless portion would use power.

If they get these out on the market (using e-paper tech) for under $300 CAN I would buy one asap.

Re:Good Idea, Bad Price

[Otter]

They do seem to make some real stuff, some of which is pretty sweet looking. (Although $125 for a whitebaord with a clock in the middle is a bit over my budget.)

At any rate, I'm pleased to see people catching on that the keyboard isn't real, especially after the 1000 post argument a few days ago over a joke about executing virus writers...

Re:Good Idea, Bad Price

[drgonzo59]

Yeah but still they can get the patent on it first then they can start thinking about production. That is why it is just a design studio not a hardware company. I am sure this would look interesting to people at Alienware or Belkin or even Microsoft. It is good for games, would be great for an IDE, or Photoshop and many other uses.

Actually I just thought of another idea, why not use the keyboard as a small console display as well. This could be used as a portable console in administering and fixing rack-mounted servers. The keyboard can have a small screen that will show about 10-20 lines of a terminal and also the keys would dynamically change to reflect various connection and management functions. For example after pressing "F1" the layout of the keyboard changes and now the keys to reflect a new submenu. If the key is not pressed but just slightly touched the console will display a short help message.

This would be one expensive keyboard but people who have the money to blow might be interested...

Re:Good Idea, Bad Price

[Talking Goat]

Seems like you'd be better off making a flat keyboard, a la ST:TNG. OLED is flexible, so you could actually produce a single sheet, with indentations behind it that give a "flex". So, you get around the 100+ tiny OLEDS problem by now using a single OLED, and you also get something out of your flat input device that no one has been able to accomplish: tactile feedback.

Plus, you can operate OLED in "lit" mode or plain LCD mode, giving you functionality in a wide range of ambient light situations.

Let's go into production, damn it!