Or security on your computer where instead of a alphanumeric password, you would have a series of images you press with the added level that the locations of the image would change each time you enter them.

Great for April fools jokes too.

Viaco

I only saw mockups of tactus as a big touchscreen. This is a cool idea in a sense, but there was a lot of negative feedback about it having no... feedback. Then a vague reference was made to 'solving the lack of tactility in the tactus' but no clear mockup of how this would occur, etc. seems to have come out.

I don't think a capacitive touch screen (or FTIR or other touch screen) is an ideal replacement for a keyboard... Because you don't have 'keys'. I think if you just stuck an LCD 'underneath' a really flat keyboard design (like the new apple ones), and made the keys all transparent lenses to refract the display up to where the key surfaces would be, you'd have a tricky and somewhat cheap to manufacture solution - you don't need to make an expensive touch screen display (you can transmit key clicks with key-down contact points) and you don't need to embed the displays 'in' the keys. Just have the display 'through' the keys and do what you will with the pixels that map 'between' the keys.

If tactus does this it'd be a smart move. If it is just a capacitive touch screen with some sort of buzzy force feedback it would probably be better to wait for the next generation of apple laptops/tablets, etc.

alinear

I'd never pay 1500 bucks for a keyboard, even if it made me a sammich, did my laundry, and poured me a beer.

Vekter

Obviously, $1500 for a keyboard is way too much for most academics. But if prices come down to the domain of the reasonable (say about $200 or so) I could see these things popping up all across Departments of Languages and Literatures.

Corydon

Ruho

Sihanouk-s-Poodle

edosan

FAIL!

tokiwartooth

B

pharago

Rusdude

This sort of validates his input on the subject... I don't think the keyboard really works nicely as a design without the key surfaces really taking up the space of the keys. It looks like a big, heavy cop out, especially at the price of a laptop.

Contrast this to the design of the new thin apple keyboards. I type about a bazillion WPM on those, and since migrating to them cannot stand 'normal' keyboards any more (realizing some people love big clunky keys, some people love keyboards shaped like a woman's body, etc.).

I wonder if it would be cheaper just to put a single standard LCD display under the whole keyboard surface area, masked off between keys, and make the key surfaces themselves into clear lenses that magnify the pixels under them to appear up on their 'surface'. It would certainly let you make a flatter keyboard, since the key surfaces would be more ideal if short (like the new apple keys). The driver would be a lot simpler to write since you could just address the keyboard as a single display, pushing key images to the respective unmasked regions and ignoring the masked bits (or illuminating them to give the edges of the keys an unusual outer glow).

alinear

iPhony

alter

Daimyo Nintendo

However, I still think the best keyboard is the one you don't look at. That's what makes you fast in typing. The thing you are looking at is called 'display', and for 1500$ there are better ones... ;)

Nemo

bvicarious

Jason Chen

Rusdude

Braff Wayne

dwight-schrute

Computer_Chef

FightingChance

potohead1

atuck

Then my arms wouldn't hurt as much

liveinvt

Seems like a waste of energy and real estate (and money).

Not to mention processing capacity.

Using a constant amount of processing to tell me how much my processor is processing... seems like a waste of my processor.

:)

liveinvt

Jason Chen

Jason Chen

cygnusx8

1. how do you have 18,000 new messages in gmail?! I know it can't be spam.

2. Why on earth would you buy one that only has the space key active? of all the keys, space?

lafond66

Jason Chen

"Many people who are used to Membrane Keyboards will press the keys down too far on a Mechanical Keyswitch, 'bottoming out' on every keystroke, resulting in a loud clack in addition to the light click of the keyswitch which is generated half-way through the key travel distance. Once a user learns to not press the keys completely down with every keystroke, the level of noise generated when typing on a mechanical keyswitch keyboard is substantially reduced."

Could this be what you are experiencing?

Sbudda

"The individual keys are loud and clacky, which is not great for people who prefer scissor switch or membrane type keyboards."

For those of us who prefer the venerable Model M with it's awesome - though loud - buckling springs, would it work as expected? God I hate membrane keyboards...

Sbudda

iPhony

iPhony

packetsniffer

tchangtx

mathdino

bosskev

CSX321

Brian Sexton

There no 'drivers', you'll have to get that with the next release....when everyone is using next year

(stifled smile)

vote Obama

Jason Chen

Elaine Chow

dragonphyre

cheerfulcashew

Buran

It would be sweet to swap into hirigana or umlauts from the standard US qwerty.

Of course, you gotta know how to write those languages first.

liveinvt

liveinvt

Oh, and Jason, my email, which I can tell you was a mind blowing tip, looks to be about #9724 in your inbox.

zenpoet

Leonard Nimrod

My day job is in advertising but at night I produce music... the digital kind of course. This could be as indispensable as you say for assigning MIDI controls to the keyboard. Get Arty to add some knobs and sliders and then I just condensed two or three MIDI controllers into one.

N@tedog

Oneon1isto

maven2k

Oneon1isto

ripfire

DaOtter

Munch the BanNail

I think its pretty neat to be able to customize a keyboard with images and shortcuts. But i wouldnt pay that much for one. All i would need is maybe another numpad that can be customized for shortcuts.

Papsky

Jason Chen

blomster

ripfire

how come no e-ink version?? They have e-ink in grocery store POS displays for freaking laundry detergent. LAUNDRY DETERGENT!

lpranal

IMO, huge waste

I don't look at the keys... so why would this help my productivity? if anything it would just slow me down...

also... I think you meant "expendable" not "expensable"

JuiceDaddy

DaOtter

$1500, and they couldn't make it in a better color than Commodore Beige?

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

Tayng

Geisrud

xint

wtf? why?

So you can have it say "Hit me baby one more time!"

ripfire

takeshi

for $1500, does it transform into a semi-truck???

Mith

Had to sleep for three days afterwards.

HeyBeav

bosskev

aural

Like 5 pleos.

P3nnst8r

On topic: I will not buy this keyboard until the price comes down and the displays take up all the space on the space bar, enter, etc...

CYG

wtf? why?

nutbastard

ripfire

Miranda Kali

if you can run a shell command, you can do anything.

nutbastard

burningsensation

no its not a good idea - it just takes up room with images of zero interest.

vote Obama