(Not) an April Fools' joke: Google's conveyor belt keyboard
Instead of moving your fingers across the keyboard, the letters simply roll towards you: Google Japan presents a crazy conveyor belt keyboard.
A few keys more or less: not much has changed in the familiar keyboard layout over the past few decades. The Japanese development team behind Google's Gboard screen keyboard sees this as a challenge and repeatedly introduces haarsträubende innovative keyboard inventions. The latest breakthrough: a conveyor belt keyboard on which the rows of keys rotate continuously. The idea is simple: the keys come to your fingers instead of your fingers going to the keys.
The keyboard is set up vertically and contains four moving belts, each with 29 keys arranged on them. The belts move the keys in an endless loop downwards, and you just have to tap them at the right moment. In the accompanying blog post, Google describes this concept as a «Copernican turn» where you are at the center. No letter will ever be rejected again, says an enthusiastic employee in the presentation video, rejoicing in the «cosmopolitan spirit» of the keyboard.
A version of the keyboard with significantly higher conveyor belt speed for even more productivity while typing could follow. Google is also considering a smaller variant for mobile phones as well as a voice output feature where the passing keys are read aloud.
Source: Google
The conveyor belt keyboard is not for sale. However, for those crazy enough to try it out, Google provides free instructions for building it yourself on Github.
April Fool's Day on October 1st
The keyboard was unveiled on October 1st, and that is no coincidence: in the Anglo-Saxon date format 10/1, the day is a reference to the 101-key keyboard. This so-called MF2 keyboard has been considered the standard layout in the English-speaking world since 1985. And it might be pure coincidence, but October 1st is also the day furthest away from April 1st: nothing could underscore the seriousness of a project better than this date. Google Japan is a rascal.
Of course, the conveyor belt keyboard is not meant to be taken seriously. The idea joins other daring keyboard concepts from the Gboard team, such as a rotary dial keyboard, a keyboard with more than 1,000 keys arranged on a drum kit, and a one-key keyboard for Morse code. Many of these are presented on October 1st.
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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