Google Japan has launched its newest Gboard DIY keyboard design, and this one’s a doozy — describing, because it does, a Möbius strip that locations its 208 keys alongside the whole lot of what’s, topologically, a single-sided form.
“‘I wish to use the again of the keyboard in addition to the entrance!’,” Google Japan writes, in translation, of the issue its newest bodily Gboard design goals to unravel. “In response to the voice of such customers, I made a keyboard that has no entrance or again. A singular keyboard with two sides. Gboard double-sided model.”
Google Japan’s declare to have made a double-sided keyboard is, arguably, not fairly proper: whereas the design does certainly embody keys throughout each the within and out of doors of its ring, the form the board kinds is that of a Möbius strip, a mathematical form outlined by Johann Benedict Itemizing and August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858 and which has one one aspect and one boundary curve. Run your finger alongside a row of keys on the brand new Gboard, and you will find yourself proper again the place you began with out ever having lifted it.
“The limitless construction has no entrance or again,” Google Japan claims of its design. “You may kind at any angle. For those who put the Gboard double-sided model [somewhere], all of the sudden a circle of individuals will kind there. If we used it collectively, clean ‘teamringWorkin.’ You will provide you with some unique concepts.
The one-sided-but-not-in-the-usual-way keyboard is simply the most recent in a string of designs from Google Japan, initially created as April Idiot’s jokes and which have included a keyboard that is additionally a teacup, a one-row-tall keyboard, and a single-keycap keyboard that is actually a key-shaped cap. Whereas created as jokes, all are practical — and the designs for many, although not all, are launched beneath open-source licenses.
The keyboard might be used for “teamringWorkin,” Google Japan suggests — tongue firmly in cheek. (📷: Google Japan)
The Gboard double-sided model, like its predecessors, is an actual and practical keyboard. For these not keen to place within the effort to construct a working model, the corporate has launched a information to a printable instance demonstrating the place of every key; the corporate has additionally launched PCB design information, case 3D print information, and firmware for the keyboard’s STMicroelectronics STM32F042F4P6 microcontroller so you’ll be able to construct your individual fully-functional model.
Extra info is on the market in Google Japan’s launch web page; the supply information can be found in a subdirectory of the mozc-devices GitHub repository, together with most earlier designs, beneath the permissive Apache 2.0 license.