In case you forgot, The Optimus mini three keyboard was one of the coolest concepts of 2005 designed by the Artemiy Lebedev studio. If you missed, this is a little 3 Button Keyboard that uses programmable mini OLED display as buttons. Here are the basics functionalities presented by [ThinkGeek/]. The Optimus Mini connects to your PC via USB and features three keys, each with their own backlit OLED screen. Each key can display a static image or full animation. Press the key and a different action occurs depending on what is assigned to it. The bundled Optimus Mini Configurator software allows you to assign various actions to each of the three keys.

But the most interesting feature of this device it's ability to assign a different camera image or even movie to each key and have them dynamically update. The screens are 20 by 20mm each, Very decent I would say, having a resolution of 96 by 96 pixels and only a 3fps refresh on those keys.

Recently, The Optimus mini three has had a little bit of hacking done to it by Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen. Scott managed to put together some code to display an AVI movie one of the tiny screens. Despite the lack of a sideshow support, this device shows great potential and the Scott's comments about a possible vista sideshow driver sounds promising.

"Here's a fantastically poor video taken with a cell phone camera that shows an AVI of a plane landing on the second mini-three button. The frame rate is crap, but it'll do. I've also got the Mini Three showing my infant son's internet "cradle cam" via a secure MJPEG stream as well. I think I'll do a Vista SideShow driver at some point as well." Read The full Story

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