The thousand-dollar keyboard - Fuck you Art Lebedev!
November 29th, 2007
Optimus Maximus in minimus sub-$1000 configurations - Engadget
We live in a fake world. Fake people, fake careers, fake tits and fake money. Well if you’re the kind of fake person that likes a fake computer, here’s your keyboard: the Optimus Maximus, by Art Lebedev (aka the “geniuses” who got paid to draw a heart on a microwave).
For those of you who just got off the boat, this keyboard’s claim to fame is that each key has its own mini color OLED display, so you can put little icons and animations on them. It’s real purty! Of course I don’t ever look at my keyboard when I type, much like most competent typists, so it would just be an irritating glow at the edge of my field of vision, and yet I’m still magically attracted to the stupid thing, much like suburban white kids are attracted to iPods in that “Oh my god I’m such a trendy douche!” kind of way.
Oh, yeah, it costs $1500+ for the high end model, but thankfully they have cheaper units that only have a few lighted keys, starting at $450-ish for just the space bar. I hear they have a trade-in program where you can mail in your kidneys and get a 10% discount.
As many people have already commented, we’re just waiting for Logitech to copy the idea and make a cheaper, more comfortable wireless version that’s rightfully made in China, like all cheap junk should be. They could probably extend some of the tech used in their G15 keyboard, like ummm, an embedded controller so your CPU doesn’t have to do all the work.
See the problem with the Optimus keyboard is that it’s supposed to be a piece of “functional art”. It was designed by artists, not engineers. It’s meant to be pretty, not so much practical. The mere fact that each key has its own mini 48×48 pixel display is direct proof that a brain was not employed during the creation of this monstrosity. Any sweatshop worker with a half-gram of coke in his veins would know it’s far more efficient (and cheap) to build one full-size display, throw on some see-thru keys, and if you’re really that anal you can paint some black outlines where the keys go. Perhaps not as “perfect” as the Art Lebedev keyboard, but you could sell the cheap one for $200 and still make a dirty dirty profit, while our poor little Russian designers get shut out of the market and are forced to go “invent” a Pokémon microwave.
Boo fucking hoo.
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