Optimus Mini Three OLED keyboard reviewed 192
Robbedoeske writes "The first Optimums Mini Three keyboards have been shipped to Holland and Tweakers.net managed to lay hands on one of them to review this precious gem." Apparently the drivers crash a lot, consume way to much CPU, the device is capable of only 3 frames per second, and the packaging makes the images look far more crisp than the actual device. And with a price tag of over $100, I'm scared to imagine what the price of a full keyboard will actually be should it ever actually ship. But it still would be neat.
Don't worry (Score:5, Funny)
There's more to the Prime edition than meets the eye.
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Per the article, the software is constantly updating the images to make sure they have the correct images, this is surely driving the CPU load higher than it needs to be
Re:Don't worry (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, this is a very cheap way to make the keyboard much more effecient, yet not raise the cost much at all ($10-20 max).
RonB
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RonB
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See here for hte docs and code [artlebedev.com]. This is really an Alpha version, but rapidly evolving according to TFA.
Any Key (Score:5, Funny)
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Keyboard not found. Press any key to continue.
Re:Any Key (Score:5, Funny)
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http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-mini
Go there and click Any.
Re:Any Key (Score:5, Funny)
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2 ways I saw of dealing with this stuff that were well done...
instead of "press any key to continue" pk-software (surely you remember pk-zip) used "press a key to continue" which meant that anyone with a brain would hit whatever they wanted, but those clueless types could press "a" and everything would be fine.
the second one was a keyboard I used to have, the main enter key was labelled "enter" but the one on the numeric keypad was labelled "return" (or vice-versa I can't r
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except shift, ctrl, caps lock, scroll lock, alt, alt gr, SysReq, Break and Pause"
just aint so snappy
Packaging? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am shocked... shocked I tell you to learn that the image on the package looks better than the actual device. How could this possibly have happened? Who would dream of such a thing?
Onto the device itself. I'm glad to see it develop and that it's more than just a concept. The technology is still in its infancy and it will take time for it to improve and come down to an affordable level. I'm looking forward to the day I can get a full keyboard like this.
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*disclaimer: my PDA is about 6 years old, has 8mb ram, supports 16 shades of grey and a small but usable keyboard that you can actually type on, so i'm hardly the ultra techy ge
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The thing is about colour in a user interface; if you don't notice it, it's doing it's job. Colour cues should be unconscious and subtle, instructing your mind of the widgets function without you having to think of it.
Want to test this? Colour your "OK" option red and the cancel "green". See how many people it confuses.
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Colour is a good way to do groupings of keys into categories. I'm thinking of the keyboard for Avid [msa.com.sg] in particular. Maybe you could go halfway and put greyscale LCDs on the tops of the keys, and have the sides be translucent white with a variable-colour LED inside? I don't know if that would be significantly cheaper in the end, though.
I think it will be at least 5 years before this technology is genuinely affordable in a consumer keyboar
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None of these applications require a switch
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Yes, only OLED technology allows them to achieve dazzling frame rates of 3 FPS.
I'm dumbfounded as to why they're shooting for the moon right out the game by trying to build devices with color OLEDs on every key. That's complicated and it's expensive -- save it for a later revision.
If they had done a first-pass design that used, say, 8x8 1-bit LCD matrices on the
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Of course, when it becomes ubiquitious, there will be certain downsides. You think the "zap the mosquito" ad is annoying now?
Wait until the mosquito starts buzzing around your keyboard.
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Allow if it did, someone would write adblock to block the ads or TiVo for keyboards to skip the ads using magical time-shifting techniques.
L
Should be soon (Score:2)
Then sue these people.
wrapup (Score:5, Funny)
Has someone let Steve Ballmer know that Optimus has stolen Microsoft's marketing plan?????
"It still would be neat." (Score:2)
BUT I GOTTA HAVE IT!"
Steve Jobs must be behind this somewhere, because you are under the control of a powerful Reality Distortion Field.
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Firefox 1.0 did work.
Mozilla 1.0 did work better than IE 4 or 5.
OpenOffice 1.0 didn't work _that_ great, but 2.0 is way more stable than comparable proprietary software at versions 4 or 5 (office97, I believe)
Usually, free software developers are more humble when numbering their versions.
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But like they say, let an engineer build an engine and it'll never be finished. Perfectionists, the lot of them.
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run it on MSDos 3.3 and you would NEVER see a crash.
Ah, them was the days.
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Intresting.... but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ugh.
I think a OLED full keyboard would be cool, but maybe if they used a double-USB device scheme it would be better: USB Keyboard and small USB storage for storing GIF files of each key.
dude.... virtual desktops! (Score:5, Interesting)
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RTS
Assign a group of units to a button, and the button picture changes to, say, what the majority unit is in that group! Also, you could use the keyboard as a secondary output device, and reserve, say, the numpad for an overhead map. Hell, you could press a key on the numpad to go to that area of the map on the screen, cutting down on scroll time.
FPS
Buttons light up for various weapons as they become available, complete with updating ammo counts! Ok, n
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The other problem with what you're suggesting is that such information is almost always on the screen anyway, so there is no point in putting it on the keyboard too.
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Imagine a game of Starcraft where you're playing, say, the Zerg, constantly throwing unit groups together and tossing them at your enemies defenses. It could be very useful to see which keys you've assigned to your expendable zerglings, and which keys are for your Ultralisks at a glance, without having to waste time flipping through the groups and seeing that oh, I a
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Yeah, but...
Does it run^H^H^Hhave Linux drivers?
If not, it will be fun to see whether open source drivers are any better than the original ones.
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"Gem" (Score:2, Funny)
Slashdot stats in realtime! (Score:2, Informative)
This site can actually cope with a slashdoting pretty easily,
Nevertheless its pretty cool to look at their stats and see the slashdotting take place:
http://tweakers.net/stats [tweakers.net]
Scroll down to "reviews" to see the major increase in traffic since a few minutes.
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You stand corrected, sir.
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Simply put, the server can't take the enormous load of
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OLED for Monitor (Score:4, Interesting)
What actually happened to those predictions that OLED would soon replace LCD for monitors?? Is anything happening in the mainstream?
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OLED monitors would be awesome, and I think they're still going to get here eventually, but don't wait to replace your old dying CRT
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OLED monitor would hang on the wall like a movie screen would.
OLED could quite possibily add computer screens on car windshields.
I am glad that OLED has advanced far enough where it can display clear crisp images. Early forms only had few colors possible. It doesn't do HD images but it works.
Breast keys (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a genuine question!
I don't get it? (Score:2, Interesting)
This reminds me of the "Tablet PC" revolution (I baught one). Although a great piece of technology there wasn't a significant increase in productivity or features that warented the extra effort to adapt to the technology.
A big win for any "bleeding edge" technology is if the added productivity and features out way the effort to convert from an existing platform.
Winning Examples:
iPod (MP3 Player)
Mouse -> Cordless Mouse
Touchpad
Cell Phone OS' (When a c
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I dont know to what special type of keyboard you are reffering but a) It is possible to write (fast!) with one hand in a normal keyboard (see Dvorak one handed keyboard [wikipedia.org]). I have seen someone in action with that key distribution and it is amazing.
Tablet PC
You defin Tablet PC as a loser, however I think there has been a lot of maket for this computers. I would like to buy one, however they are quite expensive (and I am quite poor), maybe you did not liked it, and saw it as a gadget because
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While this is a very great concept - it MIGHT call for a lot of user interaction (depending on how much work they do behind the scenes to provide good software support). I am kind of reminded of my Philips Pronto - which is a great universal remote for my home theater unit, but doesn't get a whole lot of use, because I have yet to finish programming it. Why? Pain. I have to lay out everything, and it isn't easy. I am sure I am not the only one with this issue.
This co
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Why does every advance in technology require that everyone and their brother eventually use one?
Different technologies have different uses, and should be treated as such. The Tablet PC may be cumbersome and awkward for someone who woul
Huh? What exactly is this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Optimus was the Radio Shack speaker line at one time, so I immediately thought audio. Then I saw keyboard, then I saw three button, which sounds like a mouse. Then I saw excessive CPU usage, which doesn't sound like any keybaord OR mouse that I know of...
At which point it seemed that there wasn't whole lot of reasons to RTFA.
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This review is about the first pre-concept device with only 3 buttons/screens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_mini_three [wikipedia.org]
Bah... get a real keyboard! (Score:5, Interesting)
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The Das Keyboard II is nicer to type on than the IBM imho...
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agreed. ZERO tactile feedback on this thing (Score:2)
*waits for an OLED keyboard with buckling springs* (Score:2)
The only issue with the Model M...there is no way of talking on the phone and typing discretely at the same time.
Reminds me of a dilbert strip (Score:2)
can't wait (Score:2)
Let me be the first to say thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice toy, but... (Score:2)
I work with a lot of design programs every day. As such, I get tired of moving my mouse from one tool to the other and have discovered (unlike many in my office) the joy of shortcut keys. While I first needed a cheat sheet to help with the differences between my various programs, after some repitition I was able to easily remember "V" in Photoshop is "A" in Multi-Ad Creator. While an Optimus would have been ideal at firs
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I think it will work, for just that reason. By pressing ctrl, you will see all of the options, including ones you don't know about. You mentally associate that function with that particular key location, instead of finding it through trawling the menus. You'd notice a lot of new t
Got there too late (Score:2)
Mirror! (Score:2)
...another mini3 review... (Score:5, Informative)
Key Bored? (Score:2)
These gizmos are the most personal par
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OLED Mouse (Score:3, Insightful)
Two OLED buttons would be just fine.
And they should be able to make a driverless interface using the HID class and USB. It's just silly to write your own drivers when USB drivers exist on all platforms to interface your hardware with.
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Because your fingers would cover them up?
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To me, doing OLED buttons at all is kinda silly. I certainly don't look at the keyboard when I type; I haven't for years.
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Seriously, they're huge, so no problems missing them, and there's only one per finger, so no problem with getting the wrong one. What earthly use would it be to have OLEDs on them?
In a world with: (Score:2)
Vrouw topless... saywhat? (Score:2)
How could Slashdot miss that story? THIS IS STUFF THAT MATTERS!
PANIC (Score:2)
Got one, been a bit disappointed. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been programming this device for a weekends worth now. I checked the software they gave and it was ok. It does crash VERY often, though it's not the device that's causing the crashes. The USB to serial chip they use is made by Porlific and I think it's the PL-2303. Now googling for that seems to indicate prolific has had a bad history with working drivers.
Now being the nerdy hacker type, it seems that for me it only crashes when disconnecting by software. So my solution was to create a stub program in C# that connects to the device, stays connected all the time and listens for incoming TCP connections and routes those to the device. This way the computer stays connected to the device all the time and I can restart the controlling software as often as I like. Haven't had any problems with this approach yet. Still I hope Prolific fixes their serial drivers.
As for when it comes to the performance, I've noticed something weird. All of my software is currently in C# and has not been optimized. But when feeding the device with image data, the program that sends it to the device takes around 9%, while the program that generates the packets takes somwthing like 40%. This seems kinda weird and I do have some hope of fixing it.
As for the device itself, the reviews I've read have been pretty accurate. It always makes me feel bad to press a display. And the buttons are not as "solid" as I'd like.
But with enough work I hope to make even something good out of it. I was hoping of making an animated game, but no way of doing that with that serial adapter standing in between.
Great info! (Score:2)
Secondly, it seems that currently it only supports windows, which is too bad as I could see a lot of hackers of the other OS's finding this a usefule device. Open drivers (not just a programming API) would be a nice thought too
My primary beef with the device would be the aforementioned serial converter, which would really such on a fullsize keyboard, as well as the flicker issue. Hopefully they'll fix it up for the full-sized keyboar
If you're willing to hack or tweak... (Score:2)
(Personally, this thing gets my vote for "gadget most likely to actually attract babes in a club". Yes, I understand actually having this category for gadgets makes it extremely unlikely that I ever will attract babes in a club, gadgets or not.)
Not for Touch typists. (Score:2)
3-10-104 (Score:2)
I know I'd buy something that gives me the Guild Wars skill bar in a hardware version. I'm sure many other players of other MMORPGs would like to have actual keys to press that show the skills currently in the quickbar.
just say no (Score:2)
(well, it's what I first thought)
Touch Screen? (Score:2)
obligatory Microsoft Keyboard joke (Score:2)
If it cost $20 instead of $100, I would buy one just to display those three buttons on my desktop
Critical feature on the full kbd won't make it... (Score:2)
Re:It Shows Promise (Score:5, Interesting)
Three words, awesome case mod!
But practical use? No, not really, it could good for switching between virtual desktops. In some type of emergency management system you could even have a key blink if its associated desktop has some emergency situation you need to attend to.
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Are you referring to the three key or the full keyboard? Because I agree that the three key is not really practical. But a full keyboard, now that would have some incredible uses. The first one that pops in my head is multilingual support. I'm constantly driven nuts by those little stickers all over my keyboard. Not to mention that the only indication of which language you're using under Windows is the small blue box in the corner.
Given how buggy Windows is at switching lang
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Seriously, though, I think you're one of the few people who would really utilize this keyboard. I think for things like gaming, you'd be better off just getting a game-specific keyboard, and the same goes for most other task-specific arguments: if you don't have to actually change the keyboard on a regular basis, you just need different keycaps, you pr
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Methinks that would be the "small blue box" to which I was referring.
Except that it doesn't work that way. If I switch the language for a single window (let's say OpenOffice, for example), I'll usually type in the alternate language. That seems to hold to that window while I switch between them
For a full keyboard? (Score:3, Interesting)
In word processing applications you could show which keys do things such as undo, etc
When you hold shift or caps the letters can switch between upper and lower case
When you press CTRL the associated function keys could change to show their designated function.
Lots of possibilities here, though a lot do depend on the software itself supporting the keyboa
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Well, they've got application-specific keyboard layouts anyways, not entirely unlike the Z-board (though much cooler); one could only assume that the modifier keys will actually modify what's being shown accordingly, and do so specific to the app.
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Not that simple (Score:2)
1. Have a look at some of those "crap ass CPUs" in laptops before shooting your mouth. An old 933 MHz P3 laptop will run circles around a similarly clocked P4 Prescott. The P3 features _much_ higher IPC (instructions per cycle). There's a reason why the Banias and Dothan (Centrino) and later Core/Core2 are based on the P3 core, and not on the P4.
The Prescott still wins o
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solutions to their cpu usage by caching? (Score:2)
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