I send this tip in a week or so ago.

The designers are attempting to be completely transparent about their development schedule,

Of course they are, because you guys and others have done nothing but bash their ambitious project from day one, despite them already shipping a 3 button version and despite how much they have tried to keep people informed of the development, the complete OPPOSITE of Vaporware, where the project is announced but development is kept completely secret and drags on.

I guarantee you while expensive, this will be the future of keyboards and in 5-7 years we will all have the derivatives of this design on our desks and in our laptops.

Man that thing looks sweet...and expensive *sigh*

Falconfire, relax man. Gizmodo is only being hard on Art because the editors need to make themselves feel superior, since they are obviously completely in the dark about this keyboard.

I've never noticed this before, but look at the way the F- keys are spaced all funky.

1st...Mass Production of 200 keyboards?!?! wtf.

2nd...Those who have the money will never want it and those who want it will never have the money, at least not to spend on a keyboard.

Despite all the bashing, I agree that this is the future of keyboards. And contrary to popular opinion, I like the constant updates. Although it has been taking a while, at least they've been nice enough to keep us drooling by telling us how things are going. That's more than you can say for most delayed projects.

The alternative to such delays is Apple's old policy of announcing products only when they were completely ready. Some hang-ups are unavoidable in developing innovative products, there's just no way to foresee everything and know in advance how much time the project will really take.

Art Lebedev is not a vaporware specialist, the company is a real and very successful design studio, but making electronics is not their main specialty.

Cool, but no way I would ever, EVER spend more on a keyboard than what my computer costs.

I guarantee you while expensive, this will be the future of keyboards and in 5-7 years we will all have the derivatives of this design on our desks and in our laptops.

I will not argue that some version of this may become commonplace in a decade from now. Likely it will be replacements for the function keys so that a program can put little icons on them. However, I can not help but wonder, why? Are we saying the reason no one uses the function keys is because you do not know what their purpose is, and we need changing icons on them to make them usable?

Maybe. But, I am not so certain. They have added all sorts of things to keyboards these days -- audio controls, video controls, digital displays to show media info, etc.. Every time I visit someone who has one of these and I ask them how often they use the controls -- well, I suspect you know the answer.

Wait... countdown clock to PRE-order?

So when this countdown finishes, I'll be able to say I'm interested in the product, that's still not available to order?

Wow... isn't that post-post modernism?

Which makes this post a post post modern post.

No, it's not the future of keyboards, because it's retarded.

I get the OLED screens on some hot keys or something, in fact I really dig the 3-key one they pot out, but how often does the Q or ESC key change what it does, such that it requires a screen permanently mounted in it? Oh, look, when I mash caps lock, things go from qwerty to QWERTY. This is certainly worth $1500 and having to replace the thing every two years.

It's a neat idea, and certainly looks cool, but what's the damn point?

I'm not saying there isn't a place for this, just like there's a place for watercooling and $500 fancypants wooden PC cases, but it's not the future of keyboards. It's an arty technological gadget, not something that everyone will need to have to be taken seriously.

I still don't understand why Art and his keyboard are subject to so much bashing by Gizmodo, while the bigger corporations that pull similar stunts are not.

lol. A countdown to pre-order?! That's ballzy. Would have been better if it was "submit your email for notification on countdown for pre-order".

You can say whatever you want about this product being Vaporware or not, but you have to give it to this guy for being a marketing genius. The blog hype has sustained for over a year now.

This thing has been vaporware from day one.

The innovation itself is not all that original--I'm sure the idea has occurred to loads of people; it's just that most businesspeople with half a brain would dismiss it as premature, overly expensive and failure-prone. (Having browsed the studio's site, it seems clear to me that the producers are arrogant enough to ignore all of these factors.) It also doesn't look very comfortable to, y'know, type on. And besides, isn't the point of learning to type that you no longer have to look at the keys?

What have they been doing for the past few years? Their schedule says they're still just drawing mockups.

Someday, we might all have keyboards like this, and they'll be pretty convenient. But the technology is far too new and far too expensive to be the least bit viable right now.

I believe that this will be the future of some keyboards... but probably not initially the consumer market... i can see the first adopters of a more mass produced version will be corporate or niche market users. For example the keyboard i'm using now is a special one for my Avid (a video editing computer). I've used keyboards for Final Cut Pro and other machines as well and I would love to have a one with OLED user definable keys.. I just wouldn't pay 1500 for one

Future of keyboarding:

Option 1) large single touch screen surfaces with mutable functionality. Durable and simple.

Option 2) keyboard composed of dozens of tiny, mobile screens. Breakable, expensive and stupid.

But fanbois will be fanbois, I guess this will sell. If not they'll just release a Jon Hodgman commercial series ("Hi. I'm an optimus keyboard. All other keyboard give you herpes. No I can't seriously substantiate this claim, but this is just a commercial. HERPES.")

but how often does the Q or ESC key change what it does, such that it requires a screen permanently mounted in it?

Well while the ESC probably doesnt, I could think of at least two programs off the top of my head where Q actually does change in function depending on what your doing.

There are plenty of programs that by holding down alt, or ctrl or some combo, their function changes and up until now the only real way to know what it does is to look it up, have a paper cutout over your setup, have a specialized program specific keyboard, or memorizing it until the next version rolls out.

While its not exactly perfect now, if a keyboard like this caught on, I think we would eventually move away from the standard qwerty and devork layouts into layouts that more dictated their purpose than the genral purpose.

Hopefully, the Gizmodo God's will allow this comment through...

I can see using this to help kids learn how to type on a keyboard. My three year old is learning his letters but it takes to long to find them on the keyboard when we play games. If this keyboard was available and priced reasonably I would definately buy one. A program could be written to light up the keys to go along with the display on the monitor.

Maybe by the time my 5 month old is ready to start banging away at a keyboard this will be a reality.

large single touch screen surfaces with mutable functionality. Durable and simple.

Which is what Apple is putting on their iPhone, and what others have created, and people blast away at them for no tactile feeling.

People like keys.

This will not be the future of keyboard, but not for the reason you guys are claiming: it is simply because in 5-7 years all input will be through voice and handwriting recognition!

This would be a great keyboard for multi-lingual use. The letter keys would change with which ever language you use (ex. Japanese or Lithuanian). Still the price needs to come way down on this. Not to mention, now you have to worry about your keyboard crashing also!

God, Jesus please stop with this keyboard. I challenge Gizmodo not to become a tabloid and stop writing about the keyboard it can be purchased.

Vapor or not, don't go spilling your coffee on that thing.

I have to admit to having my share of fun at their expense, but it does look pretty cool.

It's the nature of the hype game, you have to deal with detractors now and hopefully win then over by knocking their socks off with a great product later.

If I NEVER see another post about this f*cking keyboard (keyboard!!), it couldn't come too soon. What's next... a slew of articles about wait times and glitches it is sure to have.
Give me an iPhone story any day of the week over this. At least people can (somewhat) afford that.

@fosman It's meta post post modern

Is the Nov. 31 date you mention in the writeup another backhanded joke?

There is no Nov. 31.

Their sched says Nov. 30

@the cheapskates

Stop whining about the price. Just because you can't afford this thing doesn't mean it isn't a significant advance in input devices and unimportant.

If this thing costs more than your computer then you're right, you probably shouldn't buy it... but for many this keyboard is nowhere near as expensive as their computers and pouring another $1500 into it isn't such a huge deal.

Remember, this isn't a Logitech keyboard, it's a luxory toy.

If gizmodo filtered product information on affordability half the stuff mentioned on this site would disappear.

Whenever I hear of people losing $70,000 to a Nigerian phishing scam it always makes me wonder how someone so naive and gullible was able to amass that amount of money in the first place.

The idea of anyone sending $1500 to Russia for a keyboard that doesn't exist yet strikes me as a bit familiar.

Perhaps I will "invent" (ie, render) a $3000 mouse (with an OLED screen in it of course for each button that changes icons depending on what your cursor is over) and take preorders in Mexico.

I don't know how many people they have on this, but that schedule looks hopelessly optimistic. And they only just started the drawings a couple weeks ago? WTF have they been doing all this time?

@ monty:

You know why people don't use those extra buttons on their keyboards? It's because half the time they aren't set up to DO anything, and the other half it's unpredictable at best whether they'll work or not. Every time I see one of those things the buttons that are labelled "email" or "music" don't work, the volume control is tenuous at best and dependant on what program you want to control the volume of, and most of the other buttons are assignable and people just don't have the time. the F keys have been around for decades, have established functions and are quite useful, and if the luddites knew what they were for they'd probably use them, as their function would be already written into the program/OS, just the icon would change.

Why doesn't anyone ever mention in any of this SPAM that real typists don't even look at their keyboard? Who would pay $1500 for something they're not supposed to look at.

looks ergonomic.

@poutine

real typists dont look at their keyboards because the functions of the keys never change. this sort of thing would be useful for programs that have dozens of commands. I've made do with conventional shortcuts so far (i do engineering drawings, 3d modeling) but it would be useful to be able to use individual keys and to have them labeled. for now, i just have to know that control+shift+r rotates the selected object 90 clockwise on the working Z, but if i had it my way, it'd be a one button thing.

maybe this is a concept which will be more understood in europe. for someone who speaks multiple languages on a daily basis, it's great. instead of having separate keyboards or memorizing a million different key codes, you can instantly switch between character sets (russian to english to japanese to french) with just the press of (probably) a hotkey.

also, as someone else pointed out, it will immediately let you see the result of modifier keys like shift and option. Instead of cramming several characters onto each key for this purpose, an entire key can be dedicated to one large character. when you press the modifier key, the keyboard is replaced with all the modifier variants.

on a lesser note, it would be lots of fun to be able to assign a font to your keyboard, just for aesthetic customization. Today i want black and red keys in a faux-japanese style, to look like antigue lacquer from the orient. tomorrow i want high tech, futuristic keys. and when i'm working i want super-clear, utilitarian keys.

it will be fun to create and share custom icons for function and other keys. cute characters animting various actions, an escape key that says, "F*!k, etc.

the reasons for this to exist are many. i only wish i could afford one. maybe someday.

*sigh* if it wasnt so expensive. I really cant bring my self to spend over 1k on a keyboard. Especially since thats more than I payed to build my PC. I do hope someday these will be standard on every computer built and keyboard built. But definately not at this price. As time goes by it will surely go down in price. But why cant it be sooner than later

@ telliott: Not everyone out of Russia is corrupt. This is a legitimate though pricey device from a company who HAS already produced a 3 button version thats been selling well for 150 bucks. You can even order one of the 3 button ones from ThinkGeek.com.

Gizmodo editors have had a huge bug about the company though, even after time and again they have proven their legitimacy to the public.

to everyone saying this keyboard is stupid, or how often does the q key change. stfu

if all you do is email/browse, then sure.

but there are people who use their pcs for more than porn.
ie, vide editing and 3ds max. have a look, for a few hundred dollars you can buy avid keyboards with coloured buttons. for me, it makes much more sense to buy one keyboard that can have different interfaces.

and this would also apply to gaming. seen those shitty keyboards with swapable plastic keys eb sells?

now my thought, I wonder how hard it would be to make this.
it's not hard to wire up a nokia color lcd. ut that's too big. anyone know of any smaller lcds?

imagine a screensaver on your keyboard after you lock your workstation at work. that would be wicked. not worth $1500. but wicked all the same

Where is section C in the schedule, "Drivers and Configuration Software"? This thing will need excellent configuration software, so you can modify the display based on active program, control key, etc. Well to be useful that is.

http://mouse.zol.com.cn/2005/0808/191979.shtml here's a link to someone trying to homebuild the optimus keyboard. and obviosuly doing it not as good, but much faster

1) What's up with the "edgy" F-key layout?

2) I used to think this was a totally stupid idea, but then I got to thinking: how often do my tool shelves/menu items change in photoshop or maya, and how sweet would it be to have those tool icons show up on that 2x5 bank of custom keys on the left, and how sweet would it be to have the "flip poly normals" icon show up on my "f" key when I hold "shift" down so I don't have to remember that 2 years ago I set the "shift+f" hotkey to "flip poly normals"?

The answer is: very, very sweet. The only catches are: seeing if they actually release a product and getting a hundred different programs to actually use it.

As someone who uses the Sun Type-6 UNIX Keyboards, HP console trays, Dell multimedia keyboards, and Logitech Bluetooth keyboards, I wonder how the Optimus will fit in? :) ...I actually replaced my PC keyboards with Sun just so I can have CAPS/CTRL, BKSP/DEL all in the same place.

@Vlad69697: I've worked with PDAs and "wearable computers" (Xybernaut) for nearly ten years. I don't think voice or handwriting will ever replace typing. Can you imagine an office cubicle environment with 120+ people all talking at their computers? Most people type faster than they write legibly, so handwriting's out.

Maybe OLED at the top of keyboard for the function keys. Probably Microsoft Sideshow over the numeric keyboard for widgets and stats. I doubt we'll see the Optimus as the future of our keyboards.

Looks nice and it's wonderfully gadgety but with the history between me and my keyboards, it wouldn't be economically feasible.

With the ammount their making the price is gonna cost people an arm and a leg + their manhood. Probally going to be 2009 when I get this keyboard (hopefully someone like Microsoft will make something along these lines)

"the $1564 piece of vaporware" enough said.

How many people here use the Windows key on their keyboard to access the Start menu? And how many people just point the mouse at the lower left corner and click Start?

I suspect few people use the dedicated Windows button, so I have some doubts that a keyboard such as this would catch on in mass-market applications. I can see specialized design studios with complex custom software using them, but not average users, and certainly not at this price point. They should have done a durable B&W LCD version first using calculator technology.

Hey it'd be cool if you pressed like alt, and every key that you would press next shows what the character or action would be.

Like if you held the alt K, you'd see on the P screen a printer icon.

To all those claiming 'its the future of keyboards' - No, it isn't. You can take any consumer product that works well, change the tech a little bit, add some bling, and you have 'art for art's sake' at a ridiculous price.

Gold plated mobile phones dont become the future of phones just becaiuse of the price and 'wow' factor.

This keyboards is an interesting, expensive distraction, nothing more.

@Meesterbell: it's not a gold plated phone. it's a phone with a screen. and you're right. those never caught on.

tech drops in price. welcome to planet earth.

If someone is passionate about something and has a well meaning intention nothing's wrong ... but here I think the developers are either funded by one of Russia's Oligarchs or have been promised orders from the russian gov for use in their space programme The american or the chinese gov's anyone? ... else if I were them with so much dev muscle I would spend my time in writing algorithms for SPEECH TO TEXT programmes so that every computer could recognise commands impeccably without my having to train it and speak in an akward way.

The concept is fantastic for a multi-lingual country but it is too far fetched to think that its the future of keyboards ...

I'm confused. Where are the media & volume controls? Sleep; eject? My keyboard only cost 100 bucks, but it's got lots of keys I use all the time that seem oddly missing from that beautiful artsy keyboard.

Plus, the space bar says "space bar" on a tiny little screen. Lame.

@Falconfire

I know that not every company in Russia is corrupt, but if something does happen (like say declaring bankruptcy) good luck in trying to get your money back over international waters. The three button thing just isn't enough of a track record for a company to inspire me to hand them $1500 of my hard earned money. In fact, I would be curious to learn that those three button thingies have been selling at all.

Pretending I had an inkling to buy this thing, you'd better believe I'd want to see it on store shelves with plenty of tech support available before I'd drop that kind of money on it. A promise from a stranger (ok fine, a strange company) in another country just isn't enough to pry my $1500 out of my hands. That kind of money can buy you a lot of sweet computer equipment. Just my two cents.

NO ONE WILL BUY THIS FOR $1500. If you are even thinking about wasting $1500 on this, just send your cash via PAYPAL to "phreakincool AT gmail.com". Your donation will be better spent, trust me.