An eclectic bunch they have there. A young Bill Murray, a resurrected Rasputin and some poor chap with an apparent head injury run the place.

http://www.artlebedev.com/company/

hell i dont care how much it costs i want one!!!

I would be more excited if IBM resurrected the Model M.

If it sees production, I'll bet the "Optimus" name goes out in a hurry. Tandy Corporation may not be much for running a retail business, but they presumably have trademark lawyers on retainer.

File this under "things that are invented because they can be invented".

Interesting, but pointless.

Indeed. The first thing I noticed was how long the keyboard is. (In concept anyway.) Number pad should be detached for ergonomics. Its fairly useless, and should not be attached to any keyboard intended for heavy use with a mouse. Ergonomics are vastly more important than flashy lights and programmability. Mice have so many new designs and have seemingly always been under going adaptations while keyboards are pretty boring, and uncomfortable. Mice are well contoured, and keyboards have those little plastic legs that can kick up. Wow.

Sounds like a great idea, but why use true color, (relatively) high resolution keys? A monochrome display with just enough resolution to display ASCII/Unicode characters (8*8, IIRC) would get the job done, and would help keep the cost down.

Obvious idea, excuse me for not reading all the posts first. Each time a mouse click or process changes the user focus, the keyboard reconfigures for the process.

Probably need a hot rescue key to wrestle control back from pop-up window/processes.

Neat toy, but what good is it really? If you know how to type, you don't need to look at your keyboard at all. If you don't know how to type, are you going to be the kind of person who spends big $$ on a keyboard? I doubt it. Now imagine missing that headshot in your fave game because of the glare from your keyboard.

The Zboard-type overlays are just as good, a lot cheaper, and they aren't really catching on. I remember the overlays came with my copy of Mechwarrior back in the dark ages- put it on the desk next to keyboard until memorized, then threw it away.

Reliability- I just can't see 104+ tiny little screens getting pounded on for years and hundreds of thousands of keystrokes.

Really, really cool if they ever actually build one, but I don't think it will sell very well.

There is a lot of enthusiasm about this thing... which is exactly the reason why I'm a tad pessimistic about it's initial price. Hopefully it'll come down after a while.

I remember years ago seeing pushbuttons with VFD's on them. They were more for multi-purpose console controls like military figher cockpits, and priced to match.
I would think a small USB numeric keypad sized add on would be more practical (and affordable) for more uses. I've also thought that an illuminated Saitek-like keyboard with a multicolor led under each key for grouping controls would be cool. I'm tired of trying to remember all the controls for each program..

I'm guessing if and when this keyboard comes out, it's going to run $1000. Thousdand-dollar keyboard, anyone?

There are probably some professionals (like CAD) who could actually justify the price. And, it sure is damn cool. But I don't think you'll see a lot for home use for quite some time.

Okay for the ridiculously rich.

What's wrong with making a transparent keyboard out of everyday clear plastic and then writing a cheap piece of software that lets you lay the markings for each key on the inside?

For each key that would be a nightmare, but surely it can be done so that one sheet of paper printed the right way lines up with every key and takes less than 5 minutes to change over with another one.

Also, with keyboards of various languages available at barely a couple of dollars, whats to stop you from just buying a bunch of different USB keyboards and shuffling them around?

Airhead concept design studios:
How many concept cars make it into the real world?
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Exactly.

Imagine the geek status you'd get with one of these at a LAN party. In fact ideally your keyboard will match the colors and style of your case mod. But wait! You can go into the impractical but FUN things like making keys glow and fade as you type.. or pulse! Or, even play VIDEO on your keyboard. Sure there would be huge gaps in the video in the space between keys, but it's just be so cool to see.
Anyway, this is a concept keyboard, not a real thing, so it's OK to dream and have fun with the idea. A very small (32x32) OLED display would probably cost $20 as a complete guess. Therefore actually building such a keyboard would be a $2000+ minimum, ignoring all of the technical challenges, robustness, and even the (not inconsiderable) software needed.

This keyboard reminds me of the old Mac KeyCaps program that would display a picture of the keyboard on the screen, along with what characters each key represented. (I think it still exists somewhere in OS X.) You could also "type" on that display, kind of like a Palm. It was especially useful because pressing ctrl, fn, shift, etc. would change the display accordingly, so you could easily find weird characters like the English pound or whatever.

Make it wireless, and I'll be all over it. Hmmm... Even if it's not, I'd enjoy it 8)

If it comes to be, this thing is all kinds of whoopass.
Coolest idea I've seen in awhile.

I can just picture it in BF2 having the Fx keys display exactly which position you'll be when you get into a vehicle.

Nothing like paying more for your keyboard than you did for your video card. There's something wrong with that, but to those who can afford it, they can afford to buy me one too.

Mmm, vaporware.

Just like Valve, drawing TF2 frame by frame in MS paint.

My Boss was looking over my shoulder when I looked at this keyboard, and the first thing we both thought of was our Video Editing stations. It would be VERY handy to be able to click the Avid key, then switch to Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, After Effects etc etc.

Coolest. Keyboard. Evar.

"mmm first saw that linked over at the inq, the ergonomics of that thing look like utter shofeezy but i cant deny that having icons on keys would be damn useful.. especially for gaming"

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ahaha someone nuked my post cuz i said the 's' word

i would have got away with it too.... if it wasn't for those meddling kids!

about:cache FTW!!!!111111111one11111

Mini-OLED display keys?

You had better enjoy your $200 investment quite a bit for that first year of ownership, because thats about how long the blue pixels will last.

Looks neat. I see allot of use for this if the price is reasonable. The only thing left as far as I'm concerned is a way to manipulate the positioning of the keys themselves ;)

Also saw this at The Inq.

I'm willing to dish out 200$ for this sort of things. I believe that I saw the evolution of keyboards there.

I can't say much for ergonomics, but the concept is simply awesome.

This is the kind of thing I'm a complete sucker for. I love it. Just tell me when and how much.

<cynic on> Also tell me how long v2 would come after it which fixes poor key action, ergonomics, MTBF and crap driver software<cynic off>

While I have my doubts about turning this concept into a product that will actually be available at reasonable prices, people such as myself who type in more than one language and hence use multiple keyboard layouts would appreciate this keyboard. Sure, you memorize most key positions after a while, but having to poke around for characters that you do forget can be annoying. The question is, how much would I be willing to pay to rid myself of that annoyance, and the answer is, not much, definitely not more than $100.

It would be awesome as a gaming keyboard, though, showing you the function of each key instead of just the default key layout.

that would be nice. imagine the cost though and the nice gamey keys after a long session. oh well