Slashdot Mirror
Update on the Optimus Keyboard
paulius_g writes "It seems that Art Lebedev has reposnded to the Slashdotting that occured to their page about the ' Optimus Keyboard'. They have included a FAQ at the middle-right of the page stating some of the questions that Slashdotters were wondering. A few interestign ones were '
It will be real', 'We hope it will be released in 2006',
'It will cost less than a good mobile phone',
'It will be OS-independent',
and finally 'It will most likely use OLED technology (e-paper is sooo slow)'. They've also included some common answers abotu Russia and it seems that they are as well searching OEMs (From the FAQ:
OEM will be possible (why not?),
Contact us for hi-res images, or interview inquires). It will be very interesting to see how this technological marvel will be created. Sign me up! I'll be ordering one in 2006."
I think it would be incredibly badass if, when you press down on the shift key, the lowercase letters change to capital letters, and the numbers change to special characters, etc.
Also, when you hold control, the word 'copy' appears on the C-key, 'paste' on the V-key, etc.
That would rock.
How much power would this thing draw (and can we even guess at that accurately)? Would it need to be plugged in to its own outlet, or would power over USB be enough?
Will they keyboard remain operational with the occasional spill? I can imgine these displays to be very sensitive to such a thing.
What about smoke, food, pubes, and other things that one might encounter in the average robust keyboard?
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Just how slow is it? It's not like you'd be running animations on the keyboard, although that would increase the coolness factor.
Most of the time, though, you would have a single update in seconds instead of several updates per second.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
It will be an open-source keyboard, SDK will be available
Keys will use animation when needed
SDK + animation = mini games on your keyboard! And with the layout for different languages, I really hope this thing doesn't get as vapotware as the Phantom gaming console.
Good point. For kids this could be really useful, educational etc. Could teach typing, memory (the match the symbols game), and a whole other load of stuff.
However. Do you want your kids playing wack-a-mole with your expensive OED keyboard? Mine will be ALL mine!!
whoa whoa whoa buddy. Back up a bit. Not to get defensive here, but this is a totally falacious statement. Its regrettable that the current high profile architects are to some extent rediculous devotees to the "big blob" school of arch, but I assure you thats not how we operate on the whole. Architects, like all designers, are trained to identify a need and conceptualize and useful way to fill that void. (look instead at MVRDV, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, or Diller Scoffidio and Renfro)
This keyboard fills a void magnificently well and throws in the kind of visual verve that makes people pay attention. In fact, like many great designs, it fills a void we didn't really think of as a void until we saw it. This will be the ipod of keyboards when it comes out at that just-expensive-enough pricepoint.
Engineers "make is work in a useful way" because thats their job. Thats what engineers do. They take a problem and attack it analytically. They break it down into do-able pieces and then build it back up. Without the designer thinking creatively from the top-down and the engineer coming at it analytically from the bottom up things like ipods and nikes and ray-bans and ferraris and optimus keyboards would not be possible.
Leave it to the engineer and you get beige box, suburban office park, opressively uniform ugliness (but its cheap). Leave it to the architect/designer and you get uncomfortable "modern" furniture, difficult to use products, wacky, not-in-my-backyard buildings whose maintenance costs are through the roof.
Cooperate and beautiful things emerge (google maps!).
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.