engadget.com — After some rough times a few months back in Art Lebedev land, all seems to be as it should be of late: they feed us hype, we eat it up, everybody wins! We're particularly partial (read: brainwashed) by this latest development on the Optimus 103 keyboard front.
Feb 22, 2007 View in Crawl 4
kirk06Feb 23, 2007
That keyboard is dead to me. The hype is long gone from this home.They dropped the bomb on this keyboard.Say, does this guy work for Sony?
pradapeteFeb 23, 2007
no, it's not the right approach because:- when you are a normal user, you use the icons and tools seen on the screen, you don't use the keyboard- when you are a power user, you use key combinations every day, and after a few weeks, you get so good at the key combinations that you don't even need to look at keyboard anymore.So, this keyboard, if it would ever exist, which we know it won't, would serve noone.
burstaneurysmFeb 23, 2007
So do I get to pay $500 more now because of the hot swapping? It was and still is a cool idea, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of buyers.
jtcalhounFeb 23, 2007
NEWS-FLASH: Optimus Keyboard to be whatever it needs to be to keep people marginally interested!
markthegothFeb 23, 2007
thought about that many times myself, but the thing is as i type this, im not looking at the keyboard, although perhaps a clear section cover lattice would allow you to get a feel for where the keys are.
eggoFeb 23, 2007
This just in: Optimus is teaming up with 3D Realms. The Optimus 103 is going to be a pack-in bundle with Duke Nukem Forever.
nofxjunkeeFeb 23, 2007
When it can be produced for a reasonable price, if this guy doesn't jump on the idea someone will. It's no secret that if these actually existed they would sell like f**king hotcakes.
topher06Feb 23, 2007
How do you say vapourware in Russian?
smartitguyFeb 23, 2007
Be patient people...Art Lebedev is waiting for the full-colour OLED technologies to come down in price. It's still in it's infancy. Even at the volumes he would be buying the little OLED display modules, HIS current cost would be in the $5 to $10 per module. Multiply that by the number of keys, and you got one kick ass but expensive as hell keyboard. No-one will buy a $500 to $1000 keyboard. At that price he couldn't sell enough of them to pay for the cost of tooling for manufacture.
kaboMar 3, 2007
Like I said, the standard keyboard does NOT show you what you're about to do.You don't interact with your screen. The screen only gives feedback about what you've done.This keyboard would give feedback about what you're about to do.Yes, power users learn the most frequent key-combinations by heart, but is that really very user friendly? I say it's great to allow the user to learn them, but don't force the poor guy.