Imagine someone took the tracks off a tiny excavator, covered them in keycaps, and decided that was a perfectly sensible way to type. That is exactly what Google Japan has done. The company has revealed the Gboard Kurukuru Version, its latest wonderfully strange physical keyboard experiment.
Unlike your traditional keyboard with stationary keys, Google has mounted them onto rotating conveyor belts that continuously bring the keys toward you–and it’s almost like a mini game.
Why reach for the key when the key can reach you?
Google’s logic claims that regular keyboards expect you to move your hands and fingers around the board. If you’re typing with one hand, it becomes a frustrating process. It gets worse if you’re typing with a single finger. So Google’s Gboard team changed which part does the moving.
The Kurukuru Version uses four conveyor belts with 29 keys on each, giving it 116 keys in total. The belts rotate continuously, and you press the character you want when it rolls into position beneath your finger. Uppercase and lowercase letters have their own keys, removing the need to hold Shift just to change case.
The company adds that the design makes it so you can type everything with one hand. So this leaves one of your hands free for the mouse, or, in the company’s example, a cup of tea. If that somehow isn’t enough machinery on your desk, Google jokes that using two of them could unlock even greater productivity.
Sadly, Google won’t sell you one
This is the 15th entry in Google Japan’s long-running series of unusual keyboard proposals. Previous experiments have included the comically long Gboard Bar, a wearable Gboard Caps keyboard, a double-sided design, and last year’s rotary-phone-inspired Gboard Dial.
There are no plans to turn the Kurukuru Version into a commercial product. Google has instead released the design as an open-source DIY project, so anyone sufficiently committed to conveyor-belt typing can attempt to build one themselves. Google even picked October 1 deliberately, referencing the classic 101-key keyboard by turning 101 into 10/1. Future ideas apparently include faster belts, longer versions with additional characters, portable short versions, and more colors.
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