The Optimus mini three is a 3-key version of the Optimus Maximus keyboard developed by Art. Lebedev Studio

Art. Lebedev Studio

Art. Lebedev Studio is a design company in Russia, founded in 1995 by Artemy Lebedev.The studio creates industrial and graphic design for commercial entities and doesn't accept work from private citizens and political or religious organizations...

. This product was released on July 5, 2006 in Russia and on August 15, 2006 throughout the rest of the world.

Overview

The Optimus mini three has the design of its parent product, the Optimus Maximus keyboard. The buttons are bigger, however, and also contain more power to produce better images/animations on the OLED screens. Even though the images of the Optimus mini three are rendered, they do give an accurate look at the final design. The Mini Three comes in 2 colours, black and aluminium, which are also the two expected colors of the Optimus Maximus keyboard.

The functions of the Optimus Mini Three remain the same as of the Optimus Maximus keyboard. The user is allowed to create/edit images and animations for each of the three keys in a resolution of 96x96 pixels to fit with the function. Key functions can be customized to perform specific actions in many applications. For example, if a user starts the program Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...

, the Mini Three will automatically detect the three functions the user has customized. These functions can be anything that PowerPoint offers, from a single (such as F5 for slideshow) to a macro (Ctrl+S for saving). On the Art. Lebedev Optimus mini three website there are several previews of applications.

The main advantage of Optimus mini three is the possibility to write custom plug-ins that can perform pretty much any task without requiring the user to interfere. For example, the bundled software includes the Gmail Notifier, which is similar to its widely known system tray equivalent, iTunes now playing, System Monitor, Informer and other useful plug-ins.

The parent

The Optimus Maximus keyboard has the 101 keys of a standard keyboard with 11 extra keys (shortcuts for applications). Each of these keys has an OLED screen displaying an image set by the user of the keyboard. Photos of Artemy Lebedev working on the Optimus mini three can be found on the Optimus mini three website.

Similar device

Depending on the way it is set up, the Optimus mini three is similar in function to the emTrace Technologies' WidgetStation.

The Optimus mini three can be classified as one way to make a highly customizable gaming keypad

Gaming keypad

A gaming keypad is a small, auxiliary keyboard designed only for gaming. It has a limited number of the original keys from a standard keyboard, and they are arranged in a more ergonomic fashion to facilitate quick and efficient gaming key presses. The commonly used keys for gaming on a computer are...

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Features and specifications

• OLED
  Organic light-emitting diode
  An OLED is a light-emitting diode in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compounds which emit light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor material is situated between two electrodes...
  
  Technology
• Device: 118x15.8x18 mm (width, depth, height)
• Keys: 32x32 mm
• Screens: 20x20 mm
• Resolutions: 96x96 px
• Animations: 3 frames per second
• Colours: 65,000
• Viewing angle: 160 deg
• USB Connection version: 1.0+
• Optimus mini Configurator software
• Windows and Mac compatible, other operating systems yet to be announced.

External links

• Optimus mini three website