As futuristic designs go, what looks most impressive would probably be see-through glass designs. If you’ve ever seen the conceptual glass phone design, you would know what I’m talking about.
Now, with enough funding, this glass keyboard and mouse design will be coming to you through this Kickstarter page.
The glass keyboard and mouse concepts are designed by Jason Giddings, an apparently they are fully functional devices. The keyboard and mouse works on a very simple principle which makes it able to function as a multi-touch surface as well.
How the devices work is with the use of an infrared LED light that shines through a strip of tempered glass that acts like a light pipe. What this means is that the light is reflected and bounces back and forth within the interior of the glass.
When a finger is placed on the glass the infrared light gets scattered, and with an infrared camera below the surface of the glass picks up this scattering. This is the way the keyboard knows where you are pressing on the glass surface. As long as there is enough light scattering, you can touch as many spots as you like. It is also able to pick up hand gestures as well.
The devices are wireless and rechargeable, and there are comfy wrist rests and bases made of solid metal. Mood lighting and tactile sounds are included, and the key layout can be changed with a software tweak and keyboard sticker.
There is no prototype of the device yet, which is worrisome, not to mention that once funding is achieved (which it is) Kickstarter is no longer directly involved. There’s only a couple of weeks left to go, so if you wish to get these futuristic-looking devices, all you need to do is pledge $150 for just the mouse, $250 for the keyboard and $300 for both the keyboard and the mouse.
I really do like devices like this, and hopefully one day they will become mainstream enough that everyone would be able to use them. In the meantime though, I think I’ll just stick to my run-of-the-mill keyboard and mouse.