If they make this thing able to be used for gaming I'm on it ;)

Having it stand up beside my monitor with stats from various games and what not would be hot.

Another thing I could see being useful would be to have each little screen show a mini virtual desktop, you hit one button and it changes to that desktop, hit another and it opens the next desktop, etc.

i dont like the whole slant thing. you see, just like all true americans, i like to have my cake and eat it too! and what that means in this case, is that i would like to have this thing be the dimensions of a regular keyboard, idealy even being able to be made as small as a laptops keyboard, so that it can be put, you guessed it, into laptops! i hope that they can do that i a few years, but until then, this is a very sweet product. if i can find some use for this i just might pick it up.

Make an actual keyboard and I am in for one, I mean how hard is it really to go to the dock and choose your application or action? (Mac User)

Lebedev, you've promised us a full keyboard fool; I guess you'll have to develop it with the dough you hope you're gonna raise with this version baboon!

If it has Bluetooth wireless, I'm in. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how cool it is; no more wires.

Yo Jon R. What do you think is going to power this thing?
It will at least have a power cord.

Stupid video stops as soon as she turns around. Damnit.

I mean, uh, interesting technology.

Yeah, wow. Uhm, nevermind that comment. Seriously. Entirely. Forget it. =)

I've got the Optimus Mini, and it's a great technology demonstration. I bought it more as a way to offer my support for Art and his team, rather than to actually own it...

However, I've been dorking with the SDK, and I actually have a decent use for it as a theatrical lighting controller. Currently, the right button displays text of the next scene, along with the cue event (i.e. "Then the moon came out..."). Pushing it loads that cue (and transmits out to the DMX chain). The middle button shows the current cue, and pushing it reloads the cue (DMX is a little flaky sometimes). The bottom toggles between blackout and panic mode.

It makes it so that the lighting board operator only has to watch and operate three buttons/screens.

Here's a thought - how about we stop trying to shoehorn displays into our ergonomic nightmares (a.k.a. keyboards) and start making better displays that allow multiple touch input - hmmm?

hakubak, this keyboard could be really useful. Under normal circumstances, it could be a keyboard, but in a lot of apps, you only type a little.

just FYI: it should have been UpravlYAtor, which comes from word upravlyat' - meaning in Russian : control. So upravlyator means : controller. :) And if you're Russian (like me), name sounds a bit corny and silly

Being able to customize a keyboard on the fly to go from games, to 3D modeling, to audio editing . . . what an awesome gizmo. I honestly think this size is probably the most useful, too. To make an entire keyboard like this, you are bound to sacrifice many comforts from quiet keystrokes to contoured keys.

But as a supplement to your regular keyboard, it's perfect.

Looks like candy.

Price will ultimately determine this unit's and the keyboard's fate.
No one will buy a $500 to $600 keyboard... specially with tactile-feedback touch sensitive LCD screens on the horizon.

See link >>>

aec007 at 04:09 PM on 10/19/06

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BTW, everyone's saying this thing will be 600 dollars. Keep in mind, opt113 should only bee around 450 to 500, and this thing will probably cost 400 max. all i know is that my RSS readers in firefox(yes i have more than one, one of them is for my gmail and won't let me add other feeds, another is for tech news liek teh giz) take up a lot of RAM, and having something like this to stand up on my desk and tell me vital CPU/RAM info and if I have new RSS feeds would be awesome.

From http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-upravlator

The Upravlator keyboard is an input device of a new type. Within the case, a 10.8″ LCD screen with a resolution of 640×480 pixels is enclosed. Over the screen, there is a board with 12 transparent buttons. Every button features four contacts (at the top, at the bottom, on the left, and on the right). Pressing the button in the middle is possible, too ("fifth contact").

Patents pending.

Go to the page for more photos, examples, etc.

Wow, allot different than I thought. I guess its not like the little 3 key job then? wanst that one an OLED display in each key?

The problems I forsee with these are:
a) Greasy keys, they are going to need allot of cleaning all the time unless they make some kind of finger grease repellant coating (face it, a good portion of gamers like their snacks while they play. Chips and clear plastic = nightmare)

b) what about cleaning the inside of keyboard? right now every so often i pop the keys off and use a little brush and air canister to get the dust and other stray matter out of there. I dont know how comfortable I would be with popping of little OLED displays...

OOOoooo, but now that i think of it. someone needs to write an app for that and have each square be a little live display for favorite TV channels (like how ATI's tuner software gives you the live feeds in thumbnails) for use with my HTPC and il scoop one up in no time flat!

Thanks for posting that info, Rusdude. Now that we know it's a screen underneath and that each button has five inputs there's certainly a lot more to it than I initially thought. It also shouldn't be as expensive as predicted since each button isn't a screen.

My mind's spinning with ideas of how to make this useful, but it's kind of overwhelming. But it would be easy to replace my computer's sidebar with those almost entirely, and the five inputs alone provides a massive range of options.

Just one of the, what, 12 buttons, could handle my media player, displaying current track, album art, and allowing me to pause/play (click the middle), skip forward (right), skip backward (left), and use up and down to maybe toggle shuffle, and change the display (album art/artist/track/etc.). That leaves me 11 more buttons for who knows what.

I could program a button or direction on a button to activate every single program I access most frequently and still have unusued ones.

This is pretty sweet. I just hope there's a good homebrew community around it to make it worth owning, as I haven't gotten into programming yet, myself.

I can't wait for the drum kits that will interface with this. A graphic artist's dream for sure.

Imagine the applications for music production...