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Optimus Mini Three OLED keyboard reviewed
Robbedoeske writes "The first Optimums Mini Three keyboards have been shipped to Holland and Tweakers.net managed to lay hands on one of them to review this precious gem." Apparently the drivers crash a lot, consume way to much CPU, the device is capable of only 3 frames per second, and the packaging makes the images look far more crisp than the actual device. And with a price tag of over $100, I'm scared to imagine what the price of a full keyboard will actually be should it ever actually ship. But it still would be neat.
I read through the article, and it looked like just a normal embedded chip with extra RAM hooked in for the displays. I wouldn't be suprized if the extra CPU on the PC is used to refresh the displays often.
Ugh.
I think a OLED full keyboard would be cool, but maybe if they used a double-USB device scheme it would be better: USB Keyboard and small USB storage for storing GIF files of each key.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
It's expensive and buggy... But it's a great proof-of-concept and can only improve from here.
While I don't see much purpose for the 3 button model, I can't wait to see how the full keyboard performs and what sort of price we'll be looking at to purchase one.
Imagine being able to use those to switch virtual desktops, and having an image of the virtual desktop on those keys! =O As a bonus side effect, that'll clear up a bit of room on the taskbar, which is a pretty big deal for me. I prefer to have as much room on my taskbar devoted to tasks and not other misc stuffs such as applets, a gigantic clock, or thumbnails of each desktop. I'm seriously getting twitchy about the prospect of this xDD
So we have OLED for keyboard?
What actually happened to those predictions that OLED would soon replace LCD for monitors?? Is anything happening in the mainstream?
Wincopy
If you are watching porn is it possible to have a mini thumbnail of your video playback display on the keypad as well?
This is a genuine question!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Other then "gadget factor" whats the real value in this?
This reminds me of the "Tablet PC" revolution (I baught one). Although a great piece of technology there wasn't a significant increase in productivity or features that warented the extra effort to adapt to the technology.
A big win for any "bleeding edge" technology is if the added productivity and features out way the effort to convert from an existing platform.
Winning Examples:
iPod (MP3 Player)
Mouse -> Cordless Mouse
Touchpad
Cell Phone OS' (When a cellphone started doing more then dialing)
PDA
Losers:
One-handed Keyboard
Tablet PC
OLED Keyboard
If your average user has to change they're process and spend alot of time configuring with low return on the effort your user accaptance is going to be significantly reduces.
Sure you can through any piece of technology in front of me and I'll play with it for a week or a month but if I can't adapt it to existing effort or it changes me to do things differantly then I'll put it down.
-- Disclaimer: I can't really back up anything I post on
Unicomp. The true one and only heir to the IBM Model M.
Circumcision is child abuse.
For the full keyboard it'd probably be better to use some kind of e-paper like system, you get the black and white contrast of your normal keys combined with the instant ability to switch languages or to FPS mode, albeit the latter with 4-shade greyscale icons. Color for the sake of color on such a small device seems pointless to me*
:-)
*disclaimer: my PDA is about 6 years old, has 8mb ram, supports 16 shades of grey and a small but usable keyboard that you can actually type on, so i'm hardly the ultra techy geek to be commenting on this sort of thing
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Indeed. Anybody want to take bets on how long it takes to go from "buggy, overpriced, and useless" to "cheap and indispensable"? I'm betting 5 years, max.
Of course, when it becomes ubiquitious, there will be certain downsides. You think the "zap the mosquito" ad is annoying now?
Wait until the mosquito starts buzzing around your keyboard.
Arr! Read The Government Manual for New Pirates!
I bought one for the gadget-nerdiness-factor (about 8 months ago :). Now about a month ago they gave away the software + programming APIs. I was kinda disappointed at the spot, since this is not really a USB device. Inside, it uses an USB to serial converter. This is why the display refresh rate is kinda low. The screens themselves are 96x96 per screen, 16bit color. They tend to "flash" a little (I guess that's the OLED for ya).
:)
I've been programming this device for a weekends worth now. I checked the software they gave and it was ok. It does crash VERY often, though it's not the device that's causing the crashes. The USB to serial chip they use is made by Porlific and I think it's the PL-2303. Now googling for that seems to indicate prolific has had a bad history with working drivers.
Now being the nerdy hacker type, it seems that for me it only crashes when disconnecting by software. So my solution was to create a stub program in C# that connects to the device, stays connected all the time and listens for incoming TCP connections and routes those to the device. This way the computer stays connected to the device all the time and I can restart the controlling software as often as I like. Haven't had any problems with this approach yet. Still I hope Prolific fixes their serial drivers.
As for when it comes to the performance, I've noticed something weird. All of my software is currently in C# and has not been optimized. But when feeding the device with image data, the program that sends it to the device takes around 9%, while the program that generates the packets takes somwthing like 40%. This seems kinda weird and I do have some hope of fixing it.
As for the device itself, the reviews I've read have been pretty accurate. It always makes me feel bad to press a display. And the buttons are not as "solid" as I'd like.
But with enough work I hope to make even something good out of it. I was hoping of making an animated game, but no way of doing that with that serial adapter standing in between.
There would be lots of uses. In games you could show icons with the actual functionality of the keys (fire, grenade, teleport, hyderdrive, whatever).
In word processing applications you could show which keys do things such as undo, etc
When you hold shift or caps the letters can switch between upper and lower case
When you press CTRL the associated function keys could change to show their designated function.
Lots of possibilities here, though a lot do depend on the software itself supporting the keyboard.