that’s simply one of the hottest pieces of hardware i’ve ever seen

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Sweet concept. I wish they were for sale here and now - I would buy one in a heartbeat! If someone can come out with this here in the states (along with good software to customize keyboard layouts and functionality) I’ll be one happy camper!

-Sparky

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That is so RAD!  I’d love to get one of those…

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I NEED ONE NOW!!!

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Thats sick, I’d get one

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That is amazing. I would buy one right now!

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That thing is SICK! I want one!

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English Translation
http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/

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I just wet myself.

And I don’t mean urine.

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Oh wow! Where can I buy this keyboard, and how much?

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you dont wanna know what i did in my pants right now

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Oh…. my ...... lord

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looks very cool… i can only imagine it has a price tag that is outrageous… anyone care to guess? I am thinking $300-$350.

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very awesome concept. i would say $100+

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I would buy one in a heart beat if it were out here and I had enough money. Simply the best ide anyone has ever had. This person is going to become so rich.

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http://www.t3.co.uk/news/general/general/strutting_onto_the_keyboard_catwalk

so its just a prototype. prototype shmototype. who’s starting the petition to have logitech begin mass production of these? i want one…make that five.

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I’d give a kidney for that…that is by far the best thing i’ve seen in quite sometime.

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Awesome. Someone start manufacturing it!

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holly d@mn i wish i they hurry and make those ill buy a couple that is a awsome idea and is sexy now i can have full controle over my pc and fps game will be awsome hope they make it so the keys dont easily grind out cuz that woudl be a bitch if i #### up that keyboard

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where but where can i buy one? pleaase someone tellme ?

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That is seriously cool.  If someone could make it so that:
* The layouts were manually switchable in software and automatically switchable when task-switching (i.e. switch to outlook and layout changes, switch to photoshop and layout changes).
* Add your own layouts/designs
* Animated keys - you could have winamp’s current song scrolling along the space bar.

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This idea was circulating two-three years ago in one of the startups in Russia. Do not laugh I guess we all think the same way over here. A real life prototype was built with the help of custom made LCDs(kinda of those they use in electronic watches), we could not have dreamt of oleds. After 6 months of sleepless work, totally broke and tired we were able to get the thing working. Gosh it was awesome. But after just two minutes of playing with it I realized how useless the whole thing actually was. What we really wanted was something different… That project was our small russian “internet bubble”, I shall never regret of, folks.

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Parabola, I think you’re bullsh*tting… You don’t sound plausible at all, to put it in kinder words.

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1. It is costly to make this keyboard. $500 minimum.
2. The keys are just to small to hold any useful information (imagine writing “Press me to fire, dude”).
3. Where do you get power to drive all those screens?
4. The most important thing is support from all software vendors like Microsoft etc to provide one common way to draw images (tons of questions related to screen-on-key resolution)
5. To get really cool keyboard with, for example, animated keys you’ve got to use fast interface (USB 2.0 or Ethernet)
6. PC software driver for this keyboard is not trivial at all.

So we are talking about a whole PC acting just like a keyboard here. In this case a much much much better solution will be a tablet PC acting like a touch-screen-type of keyboard. Just what type of touch screen to use . That will make you a millionaire ...

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^^^ Way to spoil our fun by making sense… :(

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$500 = drop in the bucket, I, and many others would pay that for this.
Iconography is designed for this kind of application.
If you build the hardware so that the keys are represented like a vga screen (only split up into pieces), the driver would be as simple as a secondary display driver, already supported by Microsoft and Linux I believe.  Your keyboard could then be considered just another monitor.

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VGA monitor, let me think. In this case all keyboards should have keys in fiixed places and of fixed size. And all keyboards should have the same design. No more extra keys, no more fancy layouts.  Do we really want it, guys?

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Maybe it’s not at all required that all keyboards will have the same layout when you make the keyboard work like a VGA monitor. I think (i’m quite a n00b when it comes to programming and #### so maybe i’m suggesting things that aren’t possible) that it would be quite easy to write a driver that works with keyboard indexes. Lemme explain: You’ve got a keyboard with a vgaresolution of e.g. 800*600 pixels total (so all pixels of all keys). When you now make different configurationfiles per type of keyboard you’re done! The driver reads in the configuration file what button contains what pixels. Lol, am quite bad at explaining this #### in english. W8, i’ll make a pic to explain.

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Here it (finally) is. Mail me if you don’t get it. I’ll try to explain.

http://home.student.utwente.nl/a.h.bakker/

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BTW, I have forgotten to say that I think the piece is DAMN AWESOME

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1. It is costly to make this keyboard. $500 minimum.
  Ok.
2. The keys are just to small to hold any useful information (imagine writing “Press me to fire, dude”).
  All you need written is fire, whic can definatly fit on    
  a key.
3. Where do you get power to drive all those screens?
  Battery, or plug it into the wall…....
4. The most important thing is support from all software vendors like Microsoft etc to provide one common way to draw images (tons of questions related to screen-on-key resolution)
  All you need to do is set up your drivers correctly.
  I can set up keys on my keyboard right now to do  
  whatever I want.
5. To get really cool keyboard with, for example, animated keys you’ve got to use fast interface (USB 2.0 or Ethernet)
    So? Go ahead and use USB 2.0.
6. PC software driver for this keyboard is not trivial at all.
    It’s not much more complicated then current
    keyboard software.  You just have to add
    something to control the images.

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I am not bitching, not my intention at all. The thing looks great. However there is a big difference between painting pictures in photoshop and real life physics and economics. I am ready to bet with anyone that we are not going to see this thing reaching commercial stage ever.

my email interrupt at inbox dot ru

full stop.

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http://primotechnology.com/index.php?art=articles/0705/optimus/index.htm
heres an interview with Artemy Lebedev, founder and director of development for the Optimus

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to the detractors:

the guys who designed this are, get this, i n d u s t r i a l d e s i g n e r s. this is what they do. they actually work for years on a project to make it real. they don’t just sit and rip the idea apart then toss it. they s o l v e the problems.

nitty gritty:

1. $500? which part of the stratosphere did you randomly grab that figure from? have you done an r&d, prototyping, manufacturing analysis on this device? what is your expertise?

2. why would you want a long message on a key anyway? see the samples they used. gee ICONS, imagine that. or howabout Q W E R T Y. gee no useful information there…

3. where do you get the power to drive a bus-powered usb 2 hard disk? did you know that one of the chief benefits of OLEDs is low current drain?

4. please list your tons of questions about screen-on-key resolution. look up some info about programmable LCD displays for system status etc. some people are quite smart at solving problems when they have motivation.

5. hmm a keyboard with ethernet interface. that’d be great for browsing that innernet thing wouldn’t it.

6. so if a pc software driver isn’t trivial what else about this project is?

7. yes i have better things to do. that’s why i’m writing this.

8. no i haven’t had my morning coffee yet.

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How about just a touch screen keyboard?

would basically be an lcd display with a touch screen overlay in the shape of a keyboard, true there would be no tactile feedback, but what the hell!

i seen a prop in a film, where it was basically a sheet of glass with a keyboard printed on it, but it could be made quite easily, actually i could make one right now if i wanted.

all i’d have to do would be buy a VGA lcd touchscreen monitor, set it up as a secondary display and load microsoft on screen keyboard. touch the screen and wey hey! But then think about making your own software… much better…

anyhow, just my thoughts, i have dreamt many a time of a keyboard like this…. (well not litrally dreamt in sleep, im not that sad!!)

-Regards, JG

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I just came across this post from 1988:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.cog-eng/msg/d63afa71ada5b033?hl=en&

It’s interesting that he suggests upper and lowercase shifting and dynamic labels, which are proposed for the Optimus keyboard. Some things never change.

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The part that I like, is that the keyboard is intended to have a resolution of 32x32 on each key.  This is so good, that the letter on the keys can update to display whatever font is chosen, and even display it in a relative size if desired.  Really, the opportunites are endless.  I am surprised he is stopping with the keys.  I would map the rest of the keyboard’s surface to be capable of displaying information such as a stock ticker, or the start bar in Windows.  Maybe that can be version 2.  Perhaps it is best to keep the original concept clean while introducing it to the public.  I just hope they work hard at making it USB powered.  I hate every device I own that doesn’t take advantage of it.  Why my scanner can operate off USB, but a wireless mouse can’t charge off it is beyond me.

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I guess the Wintendo people just don’t get it… this wasn’t made for them!

The keyboard photos don’t have any pics with a Windows key, only a Command key, like you find on a certain system from the California Research Department, not the Redmond Mother Ship’s flag.

The Cupertino folks had the stuff needed for dynamically updating a visual representation of a keyboard in place since the early 80s… it should be a no-brainer to get something like a visual keyboard working.  The hardware may even have provisions to download entire keymaps, complete with alternate shift states.

As for those who think the cost would be too high, I’d suggest they take a look at some of the higher-end keyboards, not the $19.95 K-Mart specials.  Take a look at the Maltron, Half-Qwerty, or King keyboards. (and look is all you will be able to do with much less than $500)

Serious people are willing to pay serious money for serious keyboards.  It would be *nice* to have such things available at lower prices, but it hasn’t happened yet, and I’m not willing to hold my breath.  On the other hand, DVD writers were awfully expensive a few years ago, and are almost standard equipment now.  I guess the only thing we can be sure of is that change will keep happening.

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no this keyboard doesn’t cost $500 dollars to build. The prototype was built using a little less than $200. Therefore after markup and currency exchane it will most likely be around the $300-400 dollar mark. At least initially.

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I know this thread is almost dead…but they just release a 3 key version of this….3 fairly large display keys…will be out this may, they are already taking orders.

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Hi, tell me please, where i can find some keyboards like this in England?

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Finally a keyboard that i can plug into a kvm switch and have a mac and pc on the kvm switch so i wont be pressing command to open the start menu or flag Q to quit programs!!!!!!

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we do sell this at $150 USD , China Made.
email us : sales@ihyperware.com

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To that fool who said $100 you are a moron. Try about $300 to $1000. This is brand new tech, and its going to be top dollar. OLED is still not perfect either. They are still working on life span. You would be screwed if some of the keys burned out. This is prob the main reason its not out yet, but it’s a nice view into the future.

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I would love to see that keyboard for $300!!! Try more like $1,490. (http://store.artlebedev.com/catalog/computer_add-ons/)

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Amazing!  This will cost over 1000 bucks and it worth every single one. First time I’ve seen some color on a keyboard. OLED will rule the world sometime. ~~ <a href=“http://www.My1Stop.com/BrochureContents.aspx”>brochure printing</a>

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the keybored is over 1200 dollers ...lol have fun buying one

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i dont give two ##### how much that costs i’d buy it in a heartbeat

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Hahha, funny looking at the < $500 people claiming how much it would be, just a LITTLE off, what happened!

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yowza!! talk about the penultimate typewriter. this keyboard could be a collectors item. first of its kind. together with the oled display’s and todays high power cpu’s, man the future is not now,  the future is past! what about oled mousey’s option to follow possibly?? makes sense i figure.

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