new monetization platform

Incremental revenue through apps and advertising.

By embedding small displays on the tops of the keys, they become "changeable." That's the vehicle for the real magic: Intelligent software can make these small displays do whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Keyboards become interactive, adaptive, and engaging—showing text, graphics, photos, animation or even videos. Traditional keyboards are now communications platforms.

That makes things easier for users: complex commands can be greatly simplified. There is less need for memorization, and fewer errors. But it also opens up a tremendously large revenue stream for device producers.

How? They can sell apps, for one thing. The way an Apple iPad owner might buy an app from Apple's iTunes store, a web designer using an interactive keyboard might buy a pre-programmed template for Adobe Photoshop. A writer might buy a template for Microsoft's Word program. Did you know there are over 1,000 pre-programmed macros in Word? Nor does anyone else. What a waste of engineering talent.

They can also sell advertising. The keyboard in front of you right now is static; it's dead in terms of ongoing revenue generation. Yet it represents 30% of the physical real estate of a computer. Imagine that PC OEMs didn't have to stock dozens of SKUs for different languages. Or, how education might be transformed. Traditional keyboards are now monetization platforms.