April 23rd, 2008Behold, the Keyboard of my Dreams
Today’s Geekasm comes to you via Think Geek, it’s the Optimus Maximus Keyboard.
Yep. Time to take a second mortgage on your home or break into your kid’s college fund. With the singing of angels and a ray of sunlight parting the clouds, the fabled Optimus Maximus Keyboard has descended from Russia design studio Art Lebedev like an orgasm of geekiness. As you should know by now this amazing keyboard features a tiny screen on each key… that’s 113 screens in all. What can you do with these tiny screens you ask? Well each key can change it’s image dynamically depending on what you doing. Hold down SHIFT and all keys go uppercase. Run Photoshop and you can set it so each hotkey has an image representing it’s function. Set a key to monitor your CPU usage or display what iTunes track you are currently playing. You can make a key into a tiny clock with moving hands and play animated gif files or even quicktime movies. Of course all this futuristic technology is going to cost you a pretty penny… but we figure you’ll just expense the Optimus and tout it’s “incredible increased efficiency when using PowerPoint hotkeys” in your expense report summary.
Product Features
* Revolutionary Keyboard Features a tiny OLED screen on each key. 113 screens total.
* Each key can be individually programmed to perform a series of functions, open an application or run an Applescript (Mac only)
* Various System Monitor functions can dynamically display on a key including CPU usage, CPU temperature, Network Speed, and Memory Usage
* Play a GIF animation or Quicktime movie on a Key
* Paint images across all keys at once in your image editor of choice
* Key sets can be linked to an application, so whenever you open that app the appropriate keys come up
* Powerful layer function allows you to combine existing key sets in different ways
* Use any language with the appropriate key images including Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic, Quenya, and Hiragana.
* Display notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, math functions or any other special symbol.
* Any key (or to be exact, a unit consisting of a cap, a microchip and a display) can be easily removed by hands to be cleaned or replaced
* Built in USB hub
* SD Card Slot for Storing keyboard Settings
What the hey, it’s only $1589.99. Pocket change. Right?
H/T: Squirl
April 24th, 2008 at 9:56 am
More pocket change than some of us have right now.. LOL… but it looks like a neat new gadget.. :gaga:
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April 24th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
L just got a Logitech G15 for Christmas. I love him dearly, but $60 is as high as I’m going on a keyboard!
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April 24th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
We’ve been looking for a keyboard that’s illuminated (Dan’s a hunt and peck typer, and needs to see the keys, so that would help while he’s typing at night.) that is also wireless. That’s probably such a huge drain on batteries that it’s not yet feasible to make one, but maybe someday.
This is just one of those keyboards that make it fun to play ‘If I had a Billion Dollars.’
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April 24th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
That is SO cool. Actually, what I’d like to get for work is one of those sealed keyboards - it’s disgusting how much crap gets under the keys… your kitty icons are too cute…
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April 24th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Yea, if only!
I can think of a few body parts I’d be willing to give up for one of there though.
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April 24th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Looks neat. Have you seen the small penlight sized computers the Japanese are developing that rather the keyboard and monitor project on on a flat table and wall, respectively?
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April 26th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Laura, I’m pretty anal-retentive when it comes to keyboards, I can clean a keyboard like nobody’s business.
Bruce, I could spare a kidney!
Nick, I’ve seen keyboards that project an image, but not the whole dilly.
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