keyboards

If you read Crave regularly, chances are you've got at least one gadget fetish; we, of course, have many. But there's one in particular that even we can't explain: keyboards. Not just any types, mind you, but exceedingly complicated ones, which are often expensive as well.

The "Terpstra" from Cortex Design is a MIDI keyboard controller that looks more like an unraveled beehive than a piece of studio equipment. Its 280 keys are "velocity sensitive," which supposedly gives it more control flexibility in handling microtonal music, according to Gizmowatch. Take that, Optimus Maximus.… Read more

It's such a common problem: There you are, wearing your best pair of night-vision goggles, and you can't see the damn keyboard. What's a clandestine operative to do?

iKey claims to have the answer with a LED keyboard that it says is "compatible with NV goggles, featuring filters that remove unwanted light interference" such as halo glows, according to Ubergizmo. It's kind of a version of Stacco Switch's rugged M779 that provides the necessary discretion you won't get with an LED piano lamp. Unfortunately for amateur spies, it seems to be aimed … Read more

This might not be worth mentioning if it were any other product, but it seems that every incremental development involving the "Optimus Maximus" keyboard is followed in excruciating detail. So proving that Crave is a full-service gadget blog, we dutifully report that the famed peripheral will be shipping in white, according to its official blog.

And leave it to its iconoclastic designer, Russia's Art Lebedev Studio, to buck trends once again. As computer and electronics makers have fallen in love with glossy piano-black finishes or stuck with the conventional silver, the studio has taken a completely different … Read more

Razer just announced two new gaming products at the World Cyber Games 2007 grand final in Seattle. The gaming peripheral maker revealed the Lycosa, a new gaming keyboard, and the Piranha, a new gaming headset. Once again, Razer keeps its themes of naming its mice after snakes, its keyboards after spiders, and its audio equipment after fish.

The Lycosa keyboard takes characteristics from both the Razer Tarantula and the Microsoft Reclusa (built with Razer technology) and combines them. Like the Tarantula, the Lycosa features Razer's claimed Ultrapolling 1ms response time and like the Reclusa, the Lycosa's keys light … Read more

We could have told them this would happen. Japanese design firm Hacoa, which made wooden keyboards for Marubeni Infotec, has shockingly found that consumers weren't exactly beating down their maple doors to buy the sylvan peripherals. It probably didn't help that they were going for 50,000 yen, or about $400, apiece.

And we're not so sure about its alternative strategy either. Akihabara News reports that Hacoa plans to sell kits that would have consumers assemble their own wooden keyboards. It would be one thing if this could be done for a fraction of the price, but … Read more

When we reviewed the original G15 gaming keyboard early last year, we were quite impressed with the vast array of programmable buttons and the innovative LCD GamePanel. However, we had doubts on the usefulness of the latter as it required gaming titles to write code to use the GamePanel.

The new G15 gaming keyboard did away with the flip panel and embeds the display above the keys instead. Otherwise, gaming support has increased and now World of WarCraft, Battlefield 2142 and Quake Wars are able to utilize the panel for vital stats. Frankly, at S$169 (US$111.01), it'… Read more

Thermaltake has got to have one of the oddest names for a high-tech company--it sounds as if it should be making long underwear, not computer hardware. (Given some of its products, it may already be qualified.) And its "Soprano" line of equipment make its branding all the more weird.

Still, Thermaltake's new USB keyboard would look good on Tony's desk, as the black brushed aluminum model would be complement any number of gunmetal finishes. Beyond its good looks, according to Fareastgizmos, the latest member of the family features keys that are ergonomically designed with contours shaped … Read more

Inspired by Tony Targonski's wonderful heat map of the dirt distribution in his keyboard, I decided to take all my keys off and give my own keyboard a good cleaning yesterday. (Honestly, everyone should do it once a year, unless you've got some crazy, futuristic, self-cleaning device.)

As I painstakingly scraped off all of the gunk, I learned two things. No. 1: I'm a proud PC gamer. Most of the dirt was concentrated under W, A, S, and D. No. 2: I love my keyboard and I hate my mouse. My keyboard provides endless creative potential, while my mouse helps me click on stupid links. I never clean my mouse.

In order for we keyboard lovers to make the most of our wonderful input devices, we need good launchers, i.e. apps that let us run programs or load Web sites without clicking that silly mouse.… Read more

We wish we had more information on this keyboard--in fact, we'd settle for just about any information on it. As far as we can tell from its product listing, this is a USB keyboard equipped for handwriting recognition with a built-in touch screen and stylus.

It's described as an "identity" feature, which implies that the handwriting would be used for security, but it could also just be used to read foreign language characters or custom symbols, not unlike a Chinese-made mouse that we saw earlier this year. What we do know is that it's marketed … Read more