I remember seeing someone's computer who used it for editing
videos, and the keyboard had "editing symbols" on it's keys. I'm
guessing it had some sort of rubber overlay covering a normal
keyboard or something of that nature. But, that being the case,
you'd
have to switch overlays and the rubber
would no doubt end up
collecting all sorts of grime and crap overtime, not to mention
that
the areas where the keys go up and down would be ripped up from
the pressing of the keys, or the labels would be rubbed off.
That's where this product comes in. Picture a normal keyboard-but
with transparent keys, and clear plastic "surrounding" the keys on
top, sans the letters on the keys-but all the keys in the same place
and arrangement to avoid confusion on "special" keys (shift,
spacebar
etc). The reason for elimanating the letters? Well, there's a screen
underneath which can be seen through the keys AND the "extra
space" on top (between the arrow keys and the #pad, where there
are no actual keys-just plastic). At the top, above the "normal"
keys,
there could be some extra keys (similar to the volume buttons that
a
lot of keyboards have these days)
I don't think the resolution would need to be that great-just good
enough that you can actually see the letters :) The keyboard
should, by default, when plugged into a computer that doesn't
have the special software installed, behave like a normal keyboard
and just display everything in it's usual, non-customized areas, so
that you will have a functional keyboard to work with until you've
installed the driver to alter the screen underneath. The CD that
comes with the keyboard should have software for PC, Mac and
Linux, so that you can use it reguardless.
The software would allow you to make up to 10 "presets" which
are
switched by a row of dedicated buttons at the very top, which are
skinnier than the others so that they won't be mistaken for the
regular number keys. Each preset would have different keys set
*by the user* to do
different things, with a corresponding icon underneath that key,
and
if you so choose, you could have a colored background or even a
"keyboard theme" (i.e. strips of film and cameras for video
editing,
guns for shooting games, a cloudy sky for a plane game, etc-much
like a cell phone wallpaper). The software comes with the
aforementioned 10 common setups, and the user can make more
of his own with the software and store them on the hard drive of
the computer.
The software that comes with it includes several different
"wallpapers" to set in the background, but if you so choose you can
use your own. You can have the app scale the picture to fit or you
can do it yourself if the app can't do it well enough in your
situation.
Although it does come with software, the hardware specs
necessary for writing code for this thing will be readily available
so that anyone can sell/share software designed for this keyboard.
There is also a utility on the CD that allows you to put an
abbreviated driver for this keyboard onto a jump-drive (not
included with the keyboard) . Abbreviated how, you may ask? All
it has is 1 or more of your personalized setups for the keyboard
(like video editing or playing *insert game here* for instance) and
additional code for whatever OS you are planning on using the
keyboard with. That way, you can put your photo shop or video
editing presets onto a jump-drive, bring the keyboard and jump-
drive to a friends house or to work/school, plug in the jump-drive
and launch the little program in there and voila! You've got all
your settings and key-mapping set up ready to use right there. It
runs directly from the jump-drive and does not require you to put
anything on the computer, just to ensure that you won't get a
tongue-lashing for installing software without permission
Obviously something like this will be way more expensive than a
regular keyboard so I wouldn't reccommend one of these if you
have
drinks near the computer often :)