Optimus Tactus touchscreen keyboard concept art.... now featuring lesbian lolitas
Art Lebedev, makers of the Optimus Keyboard, are now trying to drum up interest for their physically keyless touchscreen concept, the Optimus Tactus. How? By showcasing a passionate tongue-slurping session between world famous Russian catholic school girl nymphets, t.A.T.u... right on the keyboard's concept art itself! Specifically, it's a scene from the video of t.A.T.u's international breakout hit, "Ya Shosla S Uma", released in the States as "All The Things She Said."
Lesbian Lolita porn? On my keyboard? A lone fist is pumped triumphantly at a lightning-streaked sky. When's Think Geek going to start selling these already?
Optimus Tactus [Art Lebedev via Gearfuse]
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Marketing concerns aside, is there anybody else out there who thinks this is a horrible idea?
Is it a touch-screen display? Been there, done that.
Is it something trying to make money off of the iPhone craze? The iPhone is a great way to craft a user-interface when you are extremely space-constrained. I cannot imagine trying to touch-type on a flat piece of glass, though, when a perfectly-good $5 keyboard is there. Touch-typing require some sort of touch in order to work, which this thing completely lacks.
Their original keyboard that has mini-displays on each key is a good (if insanely expensive) idea. This is either a useless keyboard, or a re-designed touch-screen display.
Without some kind of crazy-ass haptic feedback and/or nanotech morphing surface, I don't see how this can be useful. Maybe in another 10 years.
Even more useless than all of his other "inventions". I wish he'd die.
Correction: Lesbian Lolita porn on your wipe-clean keyboard.
Art Lebedev desperately needs to be dragged out of his lab, stat. Even if you can't accept that t.A.T.u has been over for... what, most of a decade now?, they have admitted that they were never into each other, something that's actually pretty apparent from the videos. Lebedev should get rid of the fauxbians and put, I dunno, Batwoman and the new Question swapping spits.
Not that I'd buy one anyway (see Harrkev, et al.).
@ #5: Next thing, you're going to tell me that David Bowie isn't actually a spider from Mars. (for the humor-impaired: it doesn't matter if their attraction was for real or not. They are entertainers, and they were entertaining.)
Who the hell cares if it's impractical for the vast majority of users? It looks ridiculously, insanely fun to play with and hack. I could dream up some mighty fun Photoshop/after effects/WoW interfaces with this.
I am constantly astonished at how many jaded naysayers there are out there, attacking anything the slightest bit different from what's already sitting on their desks. If you people had your way, we would all still be using CP/M.
Let's hear it for the dreamers.
Looks about as fun as drumming your fingers on the table for three hours.
LCARS here we come..... hopefully sans onoxious beeps. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCARS )
persoanlly I wouldn't mind messing with one. however something like this would be 5+years before it would be priced in a range I could shrug and justify the purchase as a "because I got the urge."
condensed: Looks cool, would likely be to pricy for my taste.
@Halloween Jack...
t.A.T.u is never over. THAT IS ALL.
The Art Lebedev Studios are pretty much the only guys right now doing something with the decades-old keyboards. At least they're not cramming in aluminium, cold-cathode lights, pointless multimedia keys, reorganizing the navigation keys or making wavy "ergonomic" design and call it "innovation".
While I'm completely unfamiliarized with the Tactus (particularly the size of the sensors), this has some potential in a few situations... slider interfaces (such as audio equalizers), custom and "on the go" interfaces (kind of a mix between the Prime, a Wacom and a ZBoard), screen extensions to videogames (showing a functional dashboard in flight/racing sims)... All it takes is some thinking out of the box to see some possible uses.
However, other than a few hacks, I doubt that there will be many adopters of this, so it will remain as an expensive geeky keyboard for rich sci-fi fans who dream of translucent screens and laser-drawn keyboards.
Wow, so much hate.
Sure, these touch-screen interfaces lack the tactile feedback* we have grown to depend on (my best friend swears only by his Model M), and lack in the multitouch department**, but I sincerely welcome any innovation in the input department.
The concept of 'touch-typing' only exists because of technical limitations that separated the output (screen) from the input (keyboard/mouse/whatever).
Reconciling computer input and output is Good. Techicalities shall be overcome.
*though there are concepts/patents for tying a rumble in the keyboard to successful input.
**Keyboards too. Ever tried playing an arcade game with a friend on a keyboard?
does it come in "steam punk" yet?
>The concept of 'touch-typing' only exists because of technical limitations that separated the output (screen) from the input (keyboard/mouse/whatever).
And that's not a bad thing. I'll take the speed increases afforded by touch typing over having to constantly monitor my typing any day.
Okay, here's the thing; whoever said that you HAD to use a keyboard to TYPE? The concept they're showing shows that the keyboard can be extended to different possibilities, like using it as a color picker(see their concept image). What about applications where you need an interface, but you don't need to type? They give the Photoshop example with the color picker, and also include a tool palette on the keyboard. You could perhaps use this as a video editor as well, so you can have a main video window on your monitor, and clips and controls on the keyboard that you can touch and drag around. Even for typing, you could create your own keyboard layout in terms of shape; you can have evenly spaced keys instead of the staggered layout used on keyboards, which helps reduce strain on your hands and makes it easier to find keys - kind of like an Ergodex DX1 unit.
HOWEVER, this is more or less just finding a new application for a touchscreen monitor; in this case, the touchscreen monitor just happens to be thin and keyboard shaped. Them boys got style though.