Art Lebedev kills us with Optimus Tactus keyboard concept
By Ryan Block 
posted December 28th 2007 11:13AM
posted December 28th 2007 11:13AM
posted December 28th 2007 11:13AM
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call me crazy, but i rest my fingers on my keyboard... would that work on a touch sensitive rig? hah
what's the next version gonna be... optimus TaPcus? keyboards with built in pc and touch display?
by the way this might be of some use if they insert a wacom pressure sensor and allows you to view photoshop workspace in the center of the keyboard.
Sweet bejesus! It's a giant, effing iPhone. Oh baby, where have you been all my life.
Seriously, I hope that this is the future of keyboards...the possibilities are endless.
IF Lebedev is SO cool...why is his group STILL cranking out keyboards that are NON ergonomically considerate? Anybody can design something exciting looking; making it truly ergonomic is something quite else. Yes, you may laugh now...but down the road when your various carpal tunnels are screaming you'll think differently. Lebedev and company are still dumb little boys and girls. I rather hope he hurts himself in an exotic car accident. Maybe that will wake him/them up.
"Yeah, you thought the Optimus Maximus was the holy grail of keyboarding"
No, I didn't. I thought it was overpriced, gimmicky vaporware. I still do.
Okay, enough lookie-loos here people... Move along.
Here is how this is going to go. They are going to take this concept, people will go nuts over it and then they will hint at making it into a keyboard. A couple of months will pass, and then they will hint again at making it, saying they are taking pre-orders to test the demand for it. Then they will take the money, and make about 50 renders of every possibly angle of the device.
After a few months, they will change the design entirely, stating that certian features are simply not possible to do--both physically, and logically. The new hardware design will be almost the same, but it will have a new name.
A couple more months, and some details will finally be released such as screen resolution and touch-sensitivity and the like. Then in another post, they will announce that the details before were wrong and the resolution and touch-sensitivity will have to be decreased.
More months, more renders, and more changes will follow.
Then, in about a year, they will release a ACTUAL PICTURE of the device! Mocked up in foamboard, of course. So it is all but useless. Then, in about a week they will announce they are going to release a picture of the first prototype--which they fail to meet, because the Chinese makers have failed to make connection 232 on the pcb and it won't work.
New renders, and a New Year. Happy 2009!
You get the point.
Try the Cintiq from Wacom.
I want to be Art's Man-Whore.
No he's all mine! Get AWAY from him you B1tch! ;)
I'd he-b1tch slap you, but I am too busy using the new keyboard that Art gave me!
"Then again, the Maximus started out as a concept as well just a couple of years back, so who knows."
Wait, isn't the Maximus still pretty much just a concept?
the name is latin for "the greatest touch" (as in touchscreen.) It makes perfect sense to me...
i gave your mom the "greatest touch" yesterday
It should have a trackpad built in
It should have a trackpad built in
"... by the time keyboards like this exist we'll all be typing on shape-shifting tactile membranes overlaid on touchscreens. That is, if Apple's patents haven't already blocked everyone else off from going there."
Hi everyone.
Does Apple really have this technology or developing on it at the moment? I am curious and I would grateful if anybody could point out an article or site mentioning it.
Or is it just typical Engadget-every 5 minutes about Apple news related?
what's the crap is it?
These guys trying to develop "sophisticated" fragile gadgets which can be broken because you touch them in a wrong way.
I do not think that anybody wants to buy it. Maybe few guys in Russia.
Looks sweet, but noy worth a $1000+ price which it most likely will be. This might be the future keyboard that everyone will use in the year 2020.
T touch
A activated
C control
T terminal
U utility
S system
still more likely to happen then the phantom lapboard
This BRILLIANT!!!!
think about it for a second.
Hot keys will be a ting of the past.
You can truly create custom interfaces to your applications now.
TRy thinking beyond word processors. You get rid of the need for custom hardware because you can virtualize that interface on the key pad.
Think of how much easier it will be editing in final cut if the timeline and editing were moved to a gui on a keyboard.
Think of how much closer to a studio experience logic would feel if ur keyboard suddenly became a full blown equalizer.
Someone asked, "Why do you need the screen then?" well, you maximize the screen space for visual representation of your media.
And you make more efficient data and media manipulation by adding greater customization, personalization of your data manipulating tools.
This is going to be bigger than you can imagine.
I can imagine a laptop with one of these. The next step in computer hardware evolution. DEFINATELY!!
With the right amount of haptic feedback, they could make it feel just like a real 'board
Looks sweet, but I don't think I like keys with no tactile feedback.
It's like typing on a touchscreen with galss on top.
here's to the 2011 Vaporware awards!
overpriced gimmicky vaporware. it's only taken what, 4 years now for the first one? give us a break Lebedev.
Haptics and feedback are not new concepts, It would seem some posters dont read Engadget on a regular basis otherwise they would already be familiar with devices such as the Motorola Rokr E8 or Samsung's Armani Phone (albeit a cruder form than the Moto's).
Looks cool, however I would try and combine it with ferro fluids in some form of membrane to "raise" the surface of the touch panel to at least give some kind of fingertip edge detection.
Hey I've got something that can already do all this - it's called a mouse and my screen.
Looking at the keyboard, isn't that for people who can't type?
I don't understand the hype. This is just one huge touchscreen. Why don't you just get a tablet PC, connect it to a desktop, write some fancy software and use the tablet PC screen as a keyboard?
It's a rich man's Sinclair ZX81 (or Timex 2000 for the Americans)... sign me up!
A highly sensitive keyboard huh! Let's see, I like to key in s.... sssssssssssssss. Whoa! I only wanted an s! One more time.... ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Ok, thx but I will pass on this. Next invention plz!
nice