Posted on 05/23/2007 6:29:58 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Chicago (IL) – Russian design studio Art Lebedev opened its online store for pre-orders of the Optimus Maximus LED keyboard. The first shipment of 200 keyboards was sold within one day, despite the keyboard’s hefty price tag of $1564.37.
The Optimus maximus keyboard in pictures ...
According to a note posted on Art Lebedev’s website, the first 200 buyers will be receiving their keyboard in early January. The next 200 keyboards will ship after December 20, with another 400 becoming available in early January.
For 43,990 rub., which translates to $1564.37, buyers will get the first keyboard, which features a standalone LED in each of its 113 keys. Each LED has a size of 10.1 x 10.1 mm and offers a resolution of 48 x 48 pixels. According to the manufacturer, the keys can not only display images, but videos with frame rates of up to 10 fps as well. Up to 65,536 colors are supported, which can be seen on viewing angles of up to 160 degrees. Image and video layouts are stored on SD cards, which can be inserted on the back of the keyboard.
An interesting feature of the keys is an ambient light sensor, which automatically adjusts the brightness of the images displayed through the LEDs. The lifetime of the LEDs is about 20,000 hours, according to Art Lebedev. System requirements include Windows XP/Vista or Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher on a Mac. The driver and configuration software of the Optimus keyboard, which lets users create different key layouts, require about 20 MB of hard disk space.
No, it's not gold plated or diamond encrusted...
OH, it's also for PCs as well...
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Back when this was first unveiled, I really, really wanted it. Then it suffered delays, and I lost interest in desktop computing. (I love the concept of notebooks, even if I’m on a Dell right now...) Then the price skyrocketed and the production numbers plummeted.
It’s best to wait until someone rips this off (Logitech?) and mass-produces a cheaper version.
not a split ergonomic one....no sale
\ Just in time!
The keyboard for my Commodore 64 is almost worn out.
I need some of these.
How...practical.
Yes, see the interactive demo here -
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/demo/
Several language options are available in the demo.
Arm the phasers!
Old electrics (circa 1960s) had fantastic control over key pressure and you could type for hours without feeling like you'd been drumming your fingers into a steel plate.
I have a design that uses a laser array to track finger twitches so that no keyboard at all is needed.
You want qwerty you get qwerty but you can also get your favorite game controller configuration ~ just run the trace and track program.
It should be just as easy to do a one-handed virtual keyboard operation with this design.
All I need is several hundred thousands of dollars for R&D.
For the amount of money that thing costs, I would think one might be able to manage some sort of force-feedback system. Probably using one actuator per column, plus one each for modifier keys. Using an actuator per key would be a bit too far overkill.
I don’t want an Optimus Maximus keyboard...
... I want an Optimus Prime keyboard.
:-P
LOL - Look what he has on the desk for serious work... a gum drop iMac.
That's the whole idea. Because each keytop is a tiny display, the keyboard can dynamically switch to any desired language instantly. You could pull tricks like accommodating Japanese by having the user key in one of the phonetic characters (kana) to specify a sound, then having the keyboard display all the kanji that have that sound. The possibilities are endless.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/
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