Google wants you to have a version of the Gboard keyboard that you can physically touch, so it introduced the Gboard Bar keyboard with a unique design that brings a whole new approach to physical keyboards. It can be used in many ways.
The Gboard Bar keyboard that Google has unveiled in Japan is unlike any keyboard you've seen before. It's basically a long strip of keys running the length of it, which promises to make it easier to find the characters you want to type thanks to its single-row layout. According to Google, the design of today's keyboards makes this process difficult, as the keys are arranged on a flat surface, forcing you to look in two directions: up and down, as well as left and right.
Thanks to its unique design, the keyboard will find many other uses. According to Google, you can use it, among other things, to turn on/off lights that aren't right at your fingertips, such as a ruler, insect repellent (after the mesh is attached), or a walking stick.
The keyboard is over 1,6 meters long and just over 6cm wide, which means you'll have to stretch your arms and legs to type. It is thus ideal for two people as part of team projects. It has an otherwise traditional QWERTY layout, which can however be converted to the ASCII character set.
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Google has no plans to sell the unique keyboard, because it is obviously intended as a joke and would hardly find a serious application in practice. However, on an open source development platform GitHub has made resources available to anyone who would like to create their own Gboard Bar.
