Adam Engelhart

The Optimus Keyboard

The Optimus Keyboard, a design from the Art. Lebedev Studio, is a physical incarnation of the Key Caps desk accessory from the old-style MacOS. (Apparently it’s called Keyboard Viewer now.) Every single key is a 32×32 OLED screen. This would make learning new keyboard interfaces and typing special characters much easier, and it’s a valuable illustration of what can happen when objects document themselves as much as possible. And it’s amazingly cool to boot.

Add comment September 27th, 2005

UC Hastings vending machines: faithful mechanical servants or insidious Borg saboteurs?

The UC Hastings library is under renovation this year, and a large fraction of the collection is now in a former student lounge. The lounge also has a few vending machines, and some of them display vaguely authoritarian messages:

• ENJOY A REFRESHING DRINK NOW
• YOU ARE GETTING HUNGRY
• ITS TIME TO ENJOY A SNACK

I wonder what’s next. Perhaps something like this:

• NICE MEMO YOUVE GOT THERE
• YOU WOULDNT WANT ANYTHING TO HAPPEN TO IT, WOULD YOU
• PLEASE INSERT $5.00

Add comment September 27th, 2005