Handful of Nothing

Well, ideas are like air, they are everywhere and of course this simple idea maybe have been published or patented by someone else but here goes anyways :

Transparent keys. Yes.

The first one is based on RIM’s draw, and illustrate the same mechanism but the keyboard is the idea : transparent. Second one is a regular Flip over cover, but again : there’s a transparent keyboard on that cover.
Silly ideas? Maybe.. but there’s so much other keyboard patents around that this actually looks serious =)

Everyone talks about touchscreen keyboards enabling dynamic reconfiguration, but people complain about the lack of “physical” touch to it. Keyboards, are solid, and have the label often on that, and softkeys are just below theirs labels and could not have icons for example. So to solve both problems my idea (from 2005 to be more precise) is to have a (just like the published patent by RIM) curtain keyboard. that can be hidden beneath the device (like a garage door). The different here is that the Keyboard is actually a very transparent silicon + acrylic build that can display images on the screen below, creating the illusion that keys are reconfigured, like an advanced, cost effective version of that “russian” OLED keyboard. (optimus)

Later, in my house I will draw this baby =) and apart from the challenges behind it I would still love to make it =)

*after drawing the thing, and analyzing RIM’s apply to that sliding keyboard, my design would have 2 options :
1) being made of flexible (like silicon) material, that demanded a smaller rolling mechanism or..
2) being a complete flip cover with the keyboard on it (like some old motorola’s phones had but with the transparent buttons)

The optimus keyboard, old fellow that uses one OLED screen for each key. What if we use just transparent keys?

Resume: the same old ideas, but mixed with each other can have nice side effects =)