Miniguru Custom Keyboard Does Away With All Excess
February 9th, 2010
Looking for a cool new keyboard for your computer? The new Miniguru might just fill the bill.
The design of the compact Miniguru keyboard strips down the computer keyboard to its primal essence, eliminating any extraneous buffer space around its perimeter. They keyboard features unique ergonomic features which ensure that your index fingers always stay put on the F and J keys in the “home row”. By incorporating a laptop-style navigation nub that can be positioned with your thumb, you never need to reach for your mouse. A thumb-activated “swirl” key lets you quickly access cursor navigation keys overlaid within 1 key of the home row positions.
The Miniguru can be custom configured to your exacting standards. Using their online configurator, you can select colors for the keys, the base, symbol keys, and even the shape of the enter key. Plus, you can decide between three key-switch types: clicky, tactile and linear (which also sound like rejected Pac-Man ghost names). In addition to customizing the keyboard itself, you can also use a software tool provided by Miniguru to reassign keys to your liking and store that profile in the keyboard’s internal memory. You can even share your layouts online with other Miniguru users.
While they’re targeting a Q4 2010 release for the Miniguru, there’s no word yet on a final release date or price. For now, you can find more details over on their website.
[via Likecool]
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Categories: Computing Gadgets Technology
but, we all know WASD is the arrow keys! slight fail there
It definitely would take some getting used to that, but here’s their explanation…
Why JKLI instead of WASD for the cursor keys?
Because with JKLI the cursor keys are still on the right, similar to a regular keyboard. Most customers will be used to that. This is especially important for combinations with Shift, Control and Alt which are usually pressed with the left hand. Switching to the Miniguru will require minor re-learning for cursor navigation. To make this easier, the left hand tasks haven’t been changed beyond the required Swirl key press. We plan to supply alternate layouts for those who want their cursor controls on the left-hand side of the keyboard, for example using the WASD keys for basic cursor navigation. Because the Miniguru is programmable, alternate layouts can be easily stored in the firmware of the keyboard.
They took away the windows key! I use that extensively in Windows as well as in Linux.
Man, I think I hit that Windows key about once a year on my PC. I won’t miss it.