The Internet was abuzz a few months back with pictures of the OLED keyboard from Art. Lebedev Studios. Essentially a design project that somehow picked up steam online, the Optimus Maximus has yet to ship (though according to the company's blog, they're closing in on it). But the idea was great: Put little OLEDs underneath each key to display the type traditionally printed on top of it. Then you can change the display at will, so the key registers a different alphabet, icons, or even a little movie clip.

Then along comes Fairlight and actually ships a product.

The company, famous for creating the first digital synthesizer, recently introduced the Xynergy, a digital audio interface with some remarkable properties. For starters, just like the Optimus concept, the Xynergy has self-labelling keys that can display full color images, text, or video. Fairlight refused to reveal the secrets behind the technology, but would confirm that it's not an OLED, or an LCD, or little gnomes, or anything obvious like that. A row of buttons above the embedded LCD screen control the QWERTY keyboard, changing the display and the function of the key with ease. I tried the keyboard myself, and found the action pretty decent. It's not designed for 80 words per minute typing of course, but the images flipped instantly when I pushed the right button. It's VERY cool to see.

The main role of the Xynergy is as a digital audio interface--a controller board, in other words, which an audio technician can use to craft sound. But the tech behind this gem can easily scale down, according to Fairlight, which acknowledged interest from a handful of gaming keyboard manufacturers. It's still expensive, of course; a bundle including the company's groundbreaking PCI Express Crystal Core audio accelerator board and audio software sells for around 20,000 Euros. But imagine the possibilities of a scaled down, dedicated PC keyboard!