Art Lebedev Studio, a small Russian company, is working on a new OLED keyboard concept that's becoming quite popular in anticipation (since its introduction in July).
http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
Basically it'll use OLEDs to display anything on the keys. "Every key of the Optimus keyboard is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at this very moment."
It's quite promising from the looks of it and although I've been using the same Logitech keyboard for the past 10 years I think I'd change for this as soon as I'd get the opportunity. They advertise that "Optimus is good for any layouts—Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic—and so on to infinity: notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, mathematical functions."
Release date is planned in 2006, it should be manufactured either in Korea or China, and the estimated "optimistic" price would vary between $200 and $300. No official price has been set though, on the site they just state that "it will cost less than a good mobile phone". Whatever that means. It will also be an open-source keyboard, with a SDK available, and OS-independent. The company states that "keys could be animated when needed", and that it'll be available worldwide. "Ergonomic" versions should also be released later on.
It'll most likely use USB 2.0 or FireWire, no BlueTooth. An external alimentation device will be needed. Here's an example of customization:
That's Quake 3 Arena, but they also have an example of Photoshop layout on their site. While not vital or anything, I think it's pretty cool.
http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
Basically it'll use OLEDs to display anything on the keys. "Every key of the Optimus keyboard is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at this very moment."
It's quite promising from the looks of it and although I've been using the same Logitech keyboard for the past 10 years I think I'd change for this as soon as I'd get the opportunity. They advertise that "Optimus is good for any layouts—Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic—and so on to infinity: notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, mathematical functions."
Release date is planned in 2006, it should be manufactured either in Korea or China, and the estimated "optimistic" price would vary between $200 and $300. No official price has been set though, on the site they just state that "it will cost less than a good mobile phone". Whatever that means. It will also be an open-source keyboard, with a SDK available, and OS-independent. The company states that "keys could be animated when needed", and that it'll be available worldwide. "Ergonomic" versions should also be released later on.
It'll most likely use USB 2.0 or FireWire, no BlueTooth. An external alimentation device will be needed. Here's an example of customization:
That's Quake 3 Arena, but they also have an example of Photoshop layout on their site. While not vital or anything, I think it's pretty cool.
Anyway I still love that concept, but I'll never fork $1200 for a gimmick (especially since my $60 Logitech keyboard is still working fine after 10 years of use). I'll consider it when it's $120.
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