Touch display keyboards

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The touch display keyboard is an fascinating in that it works both as in input and output device, dynamically displaying information to the user. Basically the keyboard is a giant touch display which is fully customizable to fit the user's needs. One notable feature of the touch display keyboard are hot key tabs. For example if the user loads up Microsoft word the keyboard dynamically changes as the f1-f5 keys become Microsoft word's home, insert, page layout, ..etc tabs. If the user were to choose the insert tab on the keyboard keys on the keyboard would change accordingly into an image symbol, a chart symbol, or a wordart symbol. If the user is confused by one of these symbols all he/she has to do is lightly touch the key and a tooltip will appear, explaining the key's function.

Optimus Tactus Keyboard

A fair question to ask after learning of the hot key function is how would a user type normally when all the keys are in hot key mode. The touch display keyboard dynamically adjusts to the presence of both hands, meaning that the keyboard switches to QWERTY mode as soon as the user rests both hands on the keyboard. To simplify the keyboard's hot key capabilities a user can simply drag a function from a program with a mouse onto keyboard and that key will be assigned to the function. The functionality of this keyboard is truly amazing but currently only a prototype is available. For a  full demonstration of the keyboards features on a working prototype see:

Samsung Alias 2 Keyboard

The samsung alias 2 is actually a pretty cool flip phone that verizon has been offering for a little over a year. One of the main highlights of this phone is its keyboard that uses e-ink technology. As shown in the picture the phone can be opened lengthwise, revealing a full QWERTY keyboard or vertically, exposing a standard telephone keypad for phone calls.

Samsung Alias 2 SCH-U750

My only complaint with the phone is that the send button is tiny and located to the left of the clr and end buttons, making it easy to accidentally press the wrong button.

Keyboards

One thing that has always brothered me is the layout of my laptop's keyboard. As shown in the photo there's not one but two backslash keys in close proximity. It just confounds me because I can't imagine why you would ever need two backslash keys on the right side of the keyboard.

MSI GX630

The only explanation I can think of is that the designers were so insistent about a perfectly rectangular keyboard design so they just tossed a random backslash key in order to fill in a void. Also as a result of the rectangular design the right shift key is tiny putting it at odds with pretty much every laptop keyboard in the last decade. For reference here's some other laptop keyboards:

Sony PCG-FR415M

MacBook Air

Sony VAIO S260