Google Japan Made A Keycap: Emphasis On “Cap”, And It Types
Google Japan Made A Keycap: Emphasis On “Cap”, And It Types
Japan never cease to amaze the world when it comes to unconventional inventions, and Google Japan has come up with another pointless-yet-amusing invention relating to the keyboards (the previous attempt involves a 5.5-foot/1.67m long keyboard bar, and it’s a fully functional prototype, open-sourced).
Enter Gboard CAPS. This product is perhaps the example of taking the word “keycap” a bit too literally, because it actually is intended to be worn onto your head. You’d think that’s about it, right? That’d be a big nope. (You can read the blog here, though it’s in Japanese.)
Inside this cap houses a 6-axis inertial sensor which reads the positional data of the cap, and comes with 20mm of key travel. As you rotate the cap, you get to select different characters depending on the direction. You then literally press it to register the keystroke – all of these is connected via Bluetooth and runs on a tiny 120mAh battery (which uses USB-C for charging). As a bonus, there’s the “Caps Lock” add-on that locks your caps with a chin strap.
Obviously, you can’t buy one: this is just simply one of many other marketing (or rather, engineering) exercises to promote the Gboard brand in the country. And as usual, if you have the tools and know-how, there’s all the stuff you need to build one in the GitHub repository – or if you’re not as ambitious, a cardboard version is also available with build guides.
Small detail: the keyboard was revealed on October 1st, as the keyboard uses the standard 101-key layout (resembles 10/1 date). So nope – it’s not intended to be a late April Fools joke. Which happens to be exactly 6 months ago.
Pokdepinion: I kind of look forward to what’s the next invention they’ll come up with.
