Image: Richard Parry for The Verge
Back in 2005, a small firm offered a tantalizing vision of the future of computer keyboards.
What if your keyboard was filled with tiny screens that showed you exactly what any given press would do, each built into a crystal-clear key? The keys would morph and shift as you needed, transforming from letters and numbers to full-color icons and app shortcuts, depending on what you were doing.
Readers and tech bloggers adored the idea. “It’s about time someone shook up this stagnant keyboard market,” declared Engadget. “The concept is fantastic,” wrote Gizmodo. Slashdot lit up.
The keyboard was just a concept, dreamed up by Art Lebedev, a Russian design firm, and it was an ambitious idea at that: called the Optimus Maximus, it would require…
