Slashdot Mirror
The Optimus Mini Keyboard
Zugok writes "We all remember the Optimus Keyboard from last year. Now Art Lebedev and his team have designed the Optimus Mini Three keyboard. The 'Mini Three' builds on the idea of those extraneous keys on modern Logitech and Microsoft Keyboards but like the Optimus Keyboard utilises OLED technology for visual customisation of keys.
This is not vapourware, pre-orders are being take now with a cut price until April 2nd. This is just a step closer to the Optimus Keyboard. They also have a mailing list for those who want to keep up with developments of the Optimus Keyboard. Happy salivating!" This is a far cry from the full keyboard, but it's still pretty nifty. Assuming it actually does ship.
The pre order section says the cut rate pre order price is $100 (for the Mini).
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
But is it functional? I wonder to myself, "what will I put on those keys?" Pretty much just things that normally are an Alt-Click away anyways. I don't expect the keyboard of being able to handle serious macros, or anything.
I applaud them for attempting to release even three keys. I think they've got some guts. It isn't cost effective in small quantities, but if they can secure guaranteed sales in certain areas, they can bring the pricing down by bulk purchase so much.
Good luck to them, if they pull it off.
I can't really afford $100 on that right now... especially as I am 90% at my laptop. Ah well.
Come to think of it, that would make the full keyboard cost over $300. Damn.
Still really freakin' cool, though.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Just don't do it on your new keyboard, they are already disgusting enough, thanks!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Hope their keyboards are better than their web servers! Even mirrordot didn't catch a good mirror of the images. bummer...
Sadly many projects which have never appeared have also taken pre-orderes.
So this "justification" doesn't amount to very much. I'd love to have a look at the prices, but sadly the site is down so I can't.
I know what I'm mapping my three keys to: CTRL, ALT, and DEL
This guy's the limit!
I think it's an absolute pure luxury right now, and you can tell that they are aware of this, but to think that one day - maybe in 5 years - these really will be a viable purchase is exciting to myself. If the keyboard is good, this isn't a gimmick... it's a really really good way of working. I know I could do with easily seeing what every key on MY keyboard does on a long days slog in Discreet Combustion.
That they are taking 'pre-orders' means what exactly?
The site is crawling now so I can't see what the price of this might be. The full keyboard would be an interesting device as my wife uses a cyrillic layout quite often and just types from memory. It would be nice to be able to switch the keys from cyrillic to latin, or even dvorak to qwerty.
Auron may be different, Cally, but on Earth it is considered ill-mannered to kill your friends while committing suicide.
I think that for personal use, this is pretty much nothing but eye-candy. However, I can see some pretty decent commercial uses (note not necessarily in it's current configuration). Keyboards that are able to adapt to the application their running in a kiosk environment (where the core qwerty keys remain fixed, but the others change as needed) for example. One BIG use would be ..... the keyboard as a display. Imagine one of these keyboards in a kiosk where it's actually displaying content as it treats the keys as a miniature multi-segmented display. It would be quite catchy and you could drive a significant bit of content through it. Picture the main interface display being the keyboard (say something simple like some type of ATM), with the standard display containing other information, or perhaps a "guide", or showing more details.
That's only to be expected, but I'd wager quite a lot of people would be ready to pay $300-$400 for the full Optimus (and i'll admit that i'd probably be one of them :/)
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Well, news was spreading quickly through Digg and elsewhere hours before this story was posted.
I don't know where you got that $300 figure from. If you're extrapolating it directly up, it'd be $4000; but Art Lebedev are still claiming that it will cost "Less than a decent mobile phone"; which would then give you $300. Did I just argue myself in circles? ^^
But, for people interested in getting the full keyboard, I can't see any of them forking out an extra $100 for these 3 keys; which don't have the greatest of practical applications.
For the under-educated fast food worker, you could put pictures of burgers, fries, and shakes on the keys.
Getting them to correctly make change, OTOH, is beyond what the technology in the keyboard can offer.
Chip H.
I applaud them for attempting to release even three keys :)
The only there keys keyboard you will ever need is this one. Of course with this technology you could remap them to CTRL+ALT+^H for Unix/Linux freaks
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Why can't they make this in a "natural" version? I'd actually consider it then.
/rude /chicken and /spit in WoW?
I can't type on a regular keyboard to save my life anymore.
Do the three keys add additional functionality, or are they just mappings of other keys on the keyboard? I mean, who wouldn't want an extra three keys for
"The keyboard is in production. The first lot is set to arrive on May 15. Retail price of Optimus mini three is $100 (subject to change after April 2).
The keyboard will be available for pre-order this week."
So, I guess, the question remains where did $300 amount come from?That's "Piece of History" pricing right there. It sounds like they need the cash in order to make it through to production of the full keyboard. So they took a prototype, sized it down to something they could afford to manufacture and finished the software they need to make it work. They can use this piece to test the market and work out any problems in their manufacturing process. Sounds like a really good move to me.
For those complaining about the site being down without a mirror of a picture.... a little googling does help
Where did you get $300 from? If the mini keyboard has 3 keys and costs $100, and if the full keyboard keeps to the original design it will have 123 keys. 123/3=41, 41*100=$4100.
Obviously it isn't costing them the $33/key that they're charging, but it was never going to be cheap. They've always said it would be the same price as a decent mobile phone, and if that's a few hundred dollars, I'm sure they'll find a market. I'd be quite tempted, although not if the screens only last the 5000 hours I saw mentioned - even with my computer off half the time each day that would only last a year.
Think I'll stick with my £3 dabs.com keyboard for now.
This is not vaporware? Preorders are being taken? Thats a qualification for not being vaporware? Hell, weren't they taking preorders on that little gaming system called the Infinivap...Infinisteam...Infini...hell, are you a schill for the company? Is this the new PR engine?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
$100/3keys = 33.33$/key
107 keys * 33.33$/key = $3566.31
probably get a bit of a break because of the volume of keys
- My question is: Can Slashdot be Slashdotted? -
wouldn't the mini be more useful for a laptop?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I use so many different keyboards over the year and I wish the industry had a different label for each layout design. Some have large backspace keys with small enter keys, others have tiny backspace keys with mammoth enter keys. I think I've seen 3 or 4 layouts over time, which is crazy considering that typing becomes more efficient if the keys are in the same place. I figure the best way to get manufacturers to conform a little better is to name the layouts, and once you have your preference, you'll tend to buying the ones you're familiar with. That way manufacturers can see what consumers want and don't want. I'm sure there is a market for different layouts, but it frustrates me when I can't recall what keyboard I am used to without actually buying a new one and then finding out a day later that I'm used to a different sized "any" key.
Don't people find this type of interface confusing? In my experience, people that use MS Office products seriously dislike the 'feature' that hides inappropriate menu items, and much prefer to see them grayed out if that particular selection is not appropriate. The users I have talked to usually say "Where the $#^% did that selection go?!?". I would think that keys that change meaning would also lead to a similar confusion. Anyone actually use one of these keyboards?
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
"ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward."
Cool. Then you can't see me calling you a cock faced sheep felcher!
They don't get your money until the thing ships. What pre-orders CAN do, is give them a somewhat accurate guage of demand, which can help them negotiate volume discounts with the component suppliers, and help them secure loans. But they don't get money from the pre-orders, they can't charge your credit card until the product ships, it's illegal.
perhaps they need to remove the big graphics on that page?
at first I thought it was a video load or something..
then realized it was a display graphic of some girls (who are those girls?)
seems they just restarted the server, don't think they quite know yet they are slashdotted.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
What kind of 'they can't charge your card until product ships' crap are you spewing. Video games stores take pre-orders every day. Sears and Tweeter charge you TODAY for the TV that's shipping next week. There's no law that says receipt of good or shipment of goods must take place before charging can.
Now, if they fail to deliver the product EVER, that's a crime.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
From the FAQ, the expected lifetime of these displays is 5000 hours. That's a little over 200 days. Even with a "key saver", this severly impacts the usable lifetime of this device. I'm as excited about this keyboard as anybody else, but I think I may have to wait until people have had one on their desk for a year to see if I'm going to plunk down a significant amount of coin to buy one.
The only there keys keyboard you will ever need is this one.
;-)
They've already thought of that...
(Screenshot because the site seems intent on dying horribly. Wonder why?)
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
I wouldn't buy it to actually *press* the keys. I'd be more interested in programming the displays to show something useful. That would be pretty cool.
The 3,5 and 7 keys, making this my optimus prime keyboard.
I'm so sad.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
not going to be able to host these for long, but since the site is slow as tar:
http://www.ringdev.com/images/3Button.jpg
http://www.ringdev.com/images/optimus-mini-34.jpg
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
This whole discussion of cost came up on one tech forum when they last released plans to sell the full keyboard.
They said then the famous "as much as a good cell phone", which could be what? Some people are happy with the $50 phones, but the latest PDA-style computer with mobile service? That could be near $1000.
So how about this:
A few of us looked around, and the cheapest backlit OLED displays we could find for sale were displays for cell-phones, and each display cost roughly $75 (for the cheaper ones, in bulk). Those displays were big enough for about six keys. Bulk isn't OEM pricing of course, but that would figure to around $12 per key (for a 32 x 32-pixel display only).
Now even if you are willing to cut that cost estimate in half, that still means that these displays would cost roughly $5 per key. For around a hundred keys, that's $500 alone. OLEDs certainly will get cheaper over time and this may take them a year to get together, but they won't get that much cheaper. By far the main products they are used for is mobile phone displays.
Plus there's a good-sized piece of work underneath to run the pretty pictures. I'd be very surprised if they could get this thing out for less than $500-$600. There are other companies that produce customised-key boards of the normal type (just with different physical key shapes and positions) and they get $200-$300 for those.
~
I think this could be a really interesting way to optimize keyboard sizes.
OK, with the given 3-key keyboard, one has up to 8 possible modes, with [0,0,0] being the default mode with which no action is assigned. With a 2-key chording configuration, one can generate 6 distinct modes: 0+1, 0+2, 1+0, 1+2, 2+0, 2+1. With 1-key chording configuration, one can generate only 3 distinct modes: 0, 1, 2. Three-key chording would provide the same result as two key chording (for obvious reasons.)
Suppose this chording were applied to a full size keyboard? On my mac, when using the "Keyboard Viewer" (as I sometimes do for international characters), depressing the shift and option keys updates the display with the new possible outputs. What if this were applied to a normal keyboard, to generate an easier to learn full size keyboard? Or a keyboard with easily accessed international character sets? Or with a modal key that can be depressed to make every key into a hot key, with, perhaps, an icon associated with each key and with each action?
The applicability of this is extensive, but the lifetime and framerate (and presumably response time) leaves something to be desired.
My only question: Where is the API?
When I saw Optimus, I must admit the first thought that popped into my mind was Optimus Prime and I thought of the vast possibilities of a keyboard which could do so much more.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This seems a little slim to me. I'm not up on the expected lifetime of OLED tech but I hope it has a nifty sleep function. Because 5000 is just over 200 days of contiuous use. How many of us keep our computers running all the time....
no sig yet
I wasn't going to post this, but since their website seems to be under too much of a load... I actually interviewed Artemy and published preview with all the details on the site (and then some) plus plenty of pictures.
Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle
It's possible to configure Optimus mini to display additional functions with modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift) pressed and held on a "regular" keyboard. So instead of three screens, the user will in fact have an infinite number of them./quote?
I still have 3 screens! That's some great logic.
It does seem a bit steep ($100), but I really like the idea. It may be more useful with something like a dozen keys.
I'd bet the $100 tag on these is to help get the full sized Optimus to market.
qwe qwewwq qwweew qwwqqe wwqew wwwww qqq qwe eee ewe...had to switch back to my non-optimus keyboard. I just can't spell the words with 3 keys...sigh...
Then, you pack up and make the order ready for shipment. When you have the stuff assembled in a box and ready to ship to the customer, you "capture" the payment. This is when you actually get the money, and things can fail at this point too (e.g, if the card had been stolen.)
Capturing the money before you're shipping the order is definately against the agreements used - I'm not sure if it is illegal or not.
There's also some maximum amount of time you can keep the funds reserved - I think this vary by agreement, too.
So, you don't get the money until you're shipping the order, unless you use a factoring company or similar. A factoring company (usually) lends you money against the right to collect on your bills, and cancels the debt as the bills are paid. They're often also collection agencies, and they're normally in the black, so they can grab tax credits for losses etc - thus making the bills more worth to them than to you.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
... A Star Trek style keyboard. One big touch screen that has the ability to not only map buttons but make them any size, shape, and in any position. Even put video displays and the such. Now THAT would be great, especially for games. Keep weapons and inventory on the keyboard and to switch you could just tap the item itself as opposed to using the on screen menu and weapons groups that can be very inconvenient in the heat of battle.
Better yet keyboard accessories...why clutter up the screen with widgets, gadgets or Desktop accessories? Just send them to the keyboard display. It would be great for things like calculators, toys and meters (Power, CPU, RAM, Network).
I would buy that! (For a reasonable price)
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
I have to agree there. I wouldn't want to pay so much money knowing that the keyboard will be useless, even if it's a couple of years later (the 5000 hours goes to roughly 7 months, but assuming it uses screen saving and it's off 2/3ds of the time, I'd put it at aroudn 21 months).
:) )
I do hope it's succesfull enough for development on the line to continue, so it can be eventually affordable for the poor geek (AKA me..
http://artlebedev.com.nyud.net:8090/portfolio/opti mus/i mus-mini/
;-)
http://artlebedev.com.nyud.net:8090/portfolio/opt
Would be nice if the editors placed the Coral Cache links right away
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
fresh vapourware in the morning. Come on - this is a scam. If it isn't a scam than at a minimum it won't be as good as the pictures they are currently showing. The display will fail within a year, the keys will be heavy and nasty and the API will suck.
OLED technology just isn't good enough for this to be viable yet. Maybe, if you were NASA, you could get this keyboard to work but then howmany of us have unlimited piles of cash? To anyone that does happen to have piles of cash to burn please send some my way - thanks.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
http://artlebedev.com/portfolio/
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Not getting as much traffic as I feared, so these should stay up.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I tell you what I miss on some of those new keyboards ..... the "insert" key. There seem to be quite a few keyboard around with just a double-size "delete" key where "insert" and "delete" should be. This mucks up keyboard copy and paste {ctrl+insert and shift+insert} and also makes it harder to use links {insert and delete are used to scroll up and down by lines}.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
This would be great if you could map these keys for each online poker site to correspond to Fold-Call-Raise. Then you could be sitting there Alt-Tabbing between windows and not having to use the mouse to find those buttons.
Depends if like me, you're already plugging in a second monitor, a cat5 (sometimes I have to be on a wireless as well as a wired network), a power point, a mouse, a phono to the hifi, svideo to a tv, and sometimes a printer.....
Must.... organise.... home....network... properly.
Ugh. It'd be nice ON a laptop setup if the thing lasted more than 5000 hours....
Make a version with a long-life OLED colour (not 5000 hours because of the blue) monochrome display.
... well, that might be mouldy cake between the keys.
Looking at my keyboard, woo, look, black on white. No reds, purples, greens
I'm sure that monochrome would be cheaper for a start, require less bandwidth to update, and for keyboard uses, just as useful.
Currently it is three pressable displays.
Stick a 64x64 monochrome/greyscale OLED into a key-sized key, and make a keyboard from that. Leave the full colour version until the technology is better - both on the OLED side and on the keyboards with display side.
Hey, guys, April fools is in two months!
In all seriousness, I'm curious what anyone would do with a keyboard that has only three keys on it. And who would buy it for $100?
It might be useful for embedded applications, like some mall kiosk where you push buttons to get through a menu. But it's still a bit pricy and short on keys.
get this thing out for less than $500-$600
Sounds good. Where can I get one?
Seriously, the thought of having each key what it's current action is is intoxicating. Imagine pressing the CTRL key, and having all the key caps show their CTRL-? action.
So the key C would show "COPY" when CTRL is pressed (for a text editor) or "Break" if at the command line.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
According to the site when it was up (and posts on the previous /. article), it's a "soft touch" design with "membrane technology". Ugh.
The IBM Model M rules. And Dell "Bigfoot" AT101. Fujitsu KB4720 / 4725. A few others. Heavy-duty mechanical switches; seriously clicky; a pleasure to type on. The only kind of keyboard worth having.
/"Forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I like it!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This interview with Artemy Lebedev by Primotech shows some rendered pictures I hadn't seen on other sites as well as a picture of what looks to be a prototype.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
"The keyboard is in production. The first lot is set to arrive on May 15. Retail price of Optimus mini three is $100 (subject to change after April 2).
The keyboard will be available for pre-order this week."
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Ooooooooh! I'm gonna tell!
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
Yeah, nice try, but there are 123 keys on the original design, so assuming it sticks with that layout it will be $4100 based purely on price per key.
However, the $100 for the mini version will also include the rest of the device, not to mention a hefty markup to cover design and manufacturing costs and turn a profit at the end of it all.
But the most important fact you missed was that the size of the keys on the mini keyboard are 32mm x 32mm, whereas the size of normal keys would be ~15mm x 15mm. So even if the cost is $33/key and they plan to make a loss on it, you're looking at half the key surface area that $4100 would buy you.
Mod parent 'talking crap'.
What kind of 'they can't charge your card until product ships' crap are you spewing.
According to this FTC article, "Many credit card issuers have policies against merchants charging a credit card account before shipment" and "By law, a merchant should ship your order within the time stated in its ads or over the phone. If the merchant doesn't promise a time, you can expect it to ship your order within 30 days."
It's not for people who want programable keys, it's for people who want programable keys with displays in them. You don't map volume mute to it, or firefox, because they don't need displays.
how about if you configure Button one to display the album art for your currently playing song in WinAmp, that does a pause when you hit it. Perhaps a second that shows you the next track's name, that skips forward when you press it. That leaves the last to show you unread e-mail totals, that opens mail when you hit it. An arrangement like that would have value, wouldn't it?
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Isn't optimus a RadioShack brand name for audio equipment? Or at least it used to be.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
would be an extension with 7-8 long keys duplicating taskbar buttons, so that I don't have to Alt+Tab anymore. This extension would be located where palm rest normally is. The keys would be slightly sunk to avoid pressing them by accident.
I hope they don't pull the same trick as Fingerworks and go out of business without leaving behind an open source interface. I have two iGesture mouse touch pads that can't be configured because the configuration software doesn't run on the 2.6 kernel.
I want to use the full keyboard for Chinese. It is the ultimate solution.
Brian
--
http://skewray.com/
Yes, but will it run Goobuntu?
games journalism blog
Why on earth would you want something so limited? Three separate buttons, three separate OLEDS, limited product lifetime, and a cable probably as big as the device to boot... why not just have a nice mini touch-screen interfaced through bt which can be versatile enough to use the whole display if necessary and could also be thinner? am i on the right track?
"3 keys, real useful. If anything, I want MORE keys, not less."
Ok, don't buy it. No one is forcing you to buy anything. They are still planning a full keyboard by the end of the year. RTFWS
"the friggin atari 2600 had a directional joystick and a single button and it was more useful than this!"
If you are only interested in playing Space Invaders then I guess you're right.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The OLED mini-screens seem like a poor choice for this, given the fact that these will presumably be used as easily-changed labels, rather than dynamic minidisplay screens. If you only need to change them once in a while, wouldn't electronic ink displays be better suited to this task? Even LCD would be more appropriate, except that they would be a constant power draw.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
does it? each button is 20mm x 20mm (about 0.75") and 96x96 pixels. What purpose does a 3/4" x 3/4" thumbnail of album art have? You wouldn't even be able to read the album title off a picture that small.
How far away will you be able to read that from, maybe 5 feet max? Doesn't make a very good remote status display if you have to be right next to it (and it's not even wireless). The use they seem to be pushing is having it sit right next to a PC where the keyboard is. Right next to a *full size monitor* and *full size keyboard* that have plenty of display space and keys.
I think this product has eye-candy and amusement factor only. Anybody who is serious about a remote display knows to just get another monitor (or a touch-screen monitor), or even a whole additional computer. Anybody who wants a very small configurable remote will just get a wireless PDA (for less $$), and have the screen on it be configurable with buttons (and the resolution is MUCH higher on a PDA), not to mention the range and price being better, plus the fact that it can be used for many other things.
dude if they were geniuses, they would be able to give you 8 functions, well 7 unless you call "do nothing" a function. But more if you have toggles like play/pause
Press key 1 ------------- Play / Pause
Press key 2 ------------- Volume Down
Press key 1 and 2 ------- Previous Track
Press key 3 ------------- Volume Up
Press key 2 and 3 ------- Next Track
Press key 1 and 2 and 3-- Mute/Unmute
Ain't binary fun? Of course this assumes they can register and program simultaneous keypresses.
Gravity Sucks
Not really. The way it works is you request authorization the day of the sale for access for $x. The money is no longer available on the purchasers card. Then at COB (close of Business) the card companies send end of day results. The Transaction has now POSTED, and cannot be voided, but only returned. (which means, if you cancel a sale same day, you won't see it on your card, its as if the transaction never happened. If you cancel the next day, you will see two transactions, the original, and a credit transaction to balance it out.) Effectively, you are billed at COB that day for the product, whether you received it or not. Do credit card companies have security and fraud procedures in place to stop payment after the fact? Yes. Does the merchant account get the money at COB? No, most merchant accounts get the money at the end of the month . Can charges be disputed? Absolutely. But after the Close Of Business, you are CHARGED, which means you owe VISA $x and VISA has promised to deliver $x - VISA's take to the merchant account of the retailer.
Working at Sears on comission for a year after college made me learn all this, because people sometimes order TVs or electronics to be delivered after the date of renovations, but want to lock in ZERO FINANCING or some sort of sale.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Ah, so what you want is an Apricot PC with a 2x40 character LCD display (scroll down) from 1983.
This was my first experience with PCs; my dad had one, issued to lecturers by Wolverhampton University. British built by Brummies, fact fans. Just like those lovely Mini cars. Bostin'!
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I'm thinking. Their "cut/special" pre-order price for a three key keyboard is $100. For a standard 104 key keyboard, the price would then be $3466 if it's the OLED keys that drive the price.
Granted, it's probably cheaper to produce a larger amount, but then again the complexity increases, and the number of production faults will increase, eating up that advantage. And remember that the $100 for three keys is a "cut" price.
If they get the full size Optimus keyboard out the door, I predict it will not be at a price range for mere mortals. It may not be $3500, but it certainly won't be $200 either. If it ends up costing less than $1000, I'll eat my, um, vegetables.
Regards,
--
*Art
I know it's verboten to bitch about this, but I submitted this story yesterday, before Zugok did, and it got rejected. I'm 0 and 7 for submissions thanks to these jerky editors. Anyway, old news, Digg had it yesterday morning and Art Lebedev emailed all the list subscribers yesterday afternoon as well.
Seems like an interesting concept but like the Wankel engine in the 50's and 60's, the technology to make it work properly just isn't there yet. The measley lifetime of the OLEDs is laughable...I mean come on, who wants a 'screen saver' for the keys on their keyboard? This will be one of the premium items for a handful of first adopters, and hopefully they'll eat the development costs for the good model, probably due out next year or the year after.
If I were Lebedev, I'd just sell the design rights or license the tech to other companies like Logitech that build peripherals like crazy, sit back and collect the royalties and let someone else worry about developing product and getting it distributed. After all, they are a design house. You don't see Porsche F.A. building their own coffee machines or laptops.
Cool web page! The market quotes seem to be live data -- at least they're accurate for today.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
...because, this here can be more accurately described as "shit". The OLED lasts for 7 months of use, but that's besides the point - anyone would get bored much sooner with a three-button glorified app launcher which takes up your desk space and uses energy to give you what ctrl+anythreekeys already can. It's eye candy and could be a nice thing tied to some child-education apps learning toddlers to identify cows and bananas (if the buttons were bigger), but for $100?
The true programmer's keyboard only needs 3 keys: 1, 0, and backspace (and the old types will tell you you don't need the backspace).
- sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
For those who bitch 3 keys are useless: These are 3 choices at a time, not 3 fixed choices all the time. You can create any menu-based user interface using it. Most have 4 keys ("up", "down", "OK/Enter", "Cancel/Leave" (usually found in cell phones). Still it can be done with 3 keys, if you give up "Cancel" and replace it with a menu position - My beeper had an interface like that, worked fine - or leave out "Up" and just cycle through the whole list with "Down" every time.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I would buy the full keyboard. I do graphics and I used so many different programs that unless its a short cut I use all the time I just can not remember them all. So if this thing automatically updated as I switched between apps I would be in freaking heaven. My question would be, It would be up to the software maker to make there app display on the keyboard right? I already am using a keyboard made for final cut pro. I don't know. I would buy this thing yesterday if does the above.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
If I got this I would probably have to drop out of school and quit my job because I'd spend all my time making games that use the keyboard as its screen and controller.
From the article:
:)
"Organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) in our screens last for 5000 hours of continuous use. The screen saving mode is designed to extend the keyboards lifetime."
So after a year or so, the keyboard fails and I have to buy a new one? What a great market if you can convince all those Mac users to give you money every year the same way they do Steve Jobs..
No thanks.. I'll stick with my Fujitsu 4726.
Now, if they fail to deliver the product EVER, that's a crime.
Technically, for mail order at least, they have 30 days to ship from the time they take your payment unless they specifically tell you otherwise in advance. This is the FTC's "Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Trade Regulation Rule" and it's a pretty big deal for mail order companies to follow.
"The Rule requires that when you advertise merchandise, you must have a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. If you make no shipment statement, you must have a reasonable basis for believing that you can ship within 30 days."
Basically if you fail to ship in 30 days you have to obtain the customer's explicit consent to keep their money until you can ship or you must refund their payment.
I don't see in TFA any details about actually making a pre-order so I don't know what they promise in this case, although they say "Keyboards ready for shipment will arrive on May 15" but that doesn't mean they'll have enough to actually fulfill all pre-orders.
No, one quarter the key surface area. (ok, 0.2197265625 the area to be exact)
I have no
Very cool. But expensive and apparently the OLEDs last only 5000 hours.
You're describing a credit based system; VISA here mostly run debit cards. You're describing a day-by-day system; everything here is online, and the banks cooperate. The money is directly deducted from your bank account at the moment we capture.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Just one question about the "screensaver" feature: Which yields the longest lifespan for the OLED displays -- staying lit, or turning on/off frequently? I can imagine that, with a very aggressive screensaver setting the keys may light/dim many hundreds of thousands of cycles. Is this better than staying on all the time?
Oh, and what about power consumption? Will this thing need a wall wart?
They could increase it even more by having a mercury switch in there that knows if you tilt the keybord and press a button, or make the amount of time you hold a button down have an effect.
But in case you couldn't tell, I was being sacrastic. There's no intuitive way to require users to press combinations of keys, we have enough problems explaining to n00b users when to use Shift, Alt, Control, Windows, Menu, etc. And if you are thinking "but this keyboard is for the advanced users" I say nay, advanced users don't need a fancy display on their keyboard, they know which buttons to hit without looking at it.
Image this technology for an universal remote control. Touchscreen remote controls are flexible, but lack the tactile feel. With touchscreens, you cannot "feel" your way across the remote. With this technology, you could build a remote with real buttons whose labels change depending on the device you are controlling.
Can you deal without blue? Because that's the problem color right now... Red OLEDs reach 500,000 hours at decent brightness (not suitable for monitor brightness, but probably good enough for a keyboard). And I seriously doubt the average-sized key could provide enough information to warrant the need for more than monochrome (although, my laptop keyboard uses two colors to distinguish between a key's normal function and its "Fn" function).
Personally, I'm too much a touch typer to care about looking at my keys; the most I would want are backlit keys like on Apple Powerbooks so I could glance down to orient my fingers properly. I get information overload as it is on my main monitor... Having three, ten, or one-hundred-whatever other little screens spouting information would literally be a nightmare for me! :)
I would think that adding a OLED display to the Fingerworks Touchstream keyboard would be the most ultimate keyboard ever! Maybe they who purchased Fingerworks is thinking the same thing?
Anyone notice how the Figureworks keyboard are selling for over $700 on eBay? Wow!
The above is not worth reading.
A keyboard seems like a really good application for E-Ink (electronic paper). It is low power, it doesn't require a high refresh rate.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Sear's may have an auto capture for authorized transactions, but just because an auth went through does not mean it will be automatically captured at the end of the day. It's not the card associations that perform the capture, but the merchant or processor.
It's quite common for a processor to offer a single pass transaction type (auth, and if approved automatically capture and settle the transaction), but two pass transactions are used by savvy merchants to reduce chargeback risks.
But back to your GP post, if someone offers a pre-order and stipulates that you'll be charged in advance, that's valid by most association rules.
this after visiting the Art Lebedev website.
Maybe they should think about renaming the "Login/Lock For Windows Users" function.
Let's keep in mind that these guys are in Russia. US consumer protection laws really don't apply.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Under the "Description" section they show the "mini" keyboard and a small picture of a full size keyboard with measurements of width=118 mm, depth=51.8 mm, height=18 mm, key=32×32 mm; that's clearly a regular-sized keyboard. So are they taking pre-orders for the mini plus regular keyboards?
Well, under "Answers" they show a big drawing of a regular keyboard (which will apparently be released at the end of 2006), and the mini, which is claimed to be ready for release in May 2006. Directly under this graphic of both devices is the following text:
This makes me guess that maybe I'm just getting 3 keys for $100 in May. Maybe. Then again, maybe I get the 3 keys in May, and the rest for Christmas. Dunno.
And what are the capabilities of the big keyboard? Will every key have the dynamic keycaps, or will just a small bank of special keys have this capability? I'd love to have a keyboard with dynamic keycaps--I've wanted one for a long time. But is this what they are working on? Dunno.
I'm just guessing (in the absence of facts), but could it be that I'm being asked to underwrite the development of the big keyboard by just buying 3 keys for a hundred bucks in may? I don't theeeeenk so.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
I don't think this keyboard would be useful for many people. I don't know for sure, but I expect that most of us who use keyboards much don't look at them while typing anyway. So what do I care what is on each key? Even if switching languages frequently a touch typist has no use for this. And by the way the location and size of the enter key is not normal, so it would actually make it harder for me to type. This is a product that sounds cool but is actually useless.
The most important keys in vi can also be mapped to 3 keys.
Esc : q
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
This is not vapourware, pre-orders are being take now with a cut price until April 2nd.
My antigravity-driven, cold-fusion propelled aircraft isn't vaporware either. Hey, I can prove it: I'm taking pre-orders. Just transfer $100 into my bank account to make sure you get it as soon as it ships.
Dammit, I say put this thing on ThinkGeek for a week and run banners for it here on Slashdot. I've already mailed the picture to three people - all who have light kits in their PC's. Even if they lose money on every sale this will be the fastest moving "mod" product in a decade. Everyone will want a damn full size after that.
...
It's not about profits, it's about cash flow; as illustrated by this chart:
1. Design kickass keyboard.
2. Size it down.
3.
4. Cash Flow!
Amazon, eBay, RedHat, *.com (oops) and so forth...
Get your Unix fortune now!
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Hey, my solution only required the assumption that they could register multiple keypresses... something that does happen in real keyboards. It could be relatively intuitive, but it is a keypad with images, the images could tell the user what to do, which is not quite what the windows or ctrl keys do. That said I am giving credit to users that may not be deserved. This is supposed to just be a springboard project... to actually get your hands an an OLED keypad so people will want to buy the full keyboard...
Gravity Sucks
One of the three keys with two hot girls in white tank tops, with the words "Now Playing" written on top of them? Hmmmm, wonder what that key is programmed for...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
I don't understand why they don't consider E-Ink for the Key Labels... sure, it doesn't look quite as flashy as those OLEDs, but I'm sure it lasts longer than 5000 hours and color E-Ink might be developed as well some day...
I've seen SONY make modular implementations of the same idea quite a while ago.
It kind of reminds me of Douglas Engelbarts "Mother of All Demos", where he had an extra keyboard with five large keys on his left, which would provide some sort of function-key input, that could handle combinations, and I think was relative to the current content.
This would probably live large, if Microsoft had combined it with it's new approach to Results-based user interfaces in Office 12, but you'd need way more than three keys for that.
Remember Simon? Just take out the yellow key, and map it onto the three keys of this thing, and you have a little game. On the full keyboard, you could orient the keyboard so there's a person at each side, and map backtick/left shift and backspace/right shift to paddle controls, and have a game of pong between the two sides. Or you could have a whack-a-mole-like game, where keys light up and you have to hit them as quickly as possible. Does anyone else see the great potential here for game developers? I can even imagine games being integrated across the main monitor and the Optimus, sort of like the DS. The only hindrance for these ideas is that the Optimus' keys aren't arranged in a grid, but that can be worked around. This would be a non-issue for, say, Hearn sliding-coin puzzles, which are arranged in arbitrary graph configurations.
Psi Xi
Doesn't Hasbro have a lock on the "Optimus" name?