Ok this is the gadget, a keyboard where every key is a colour screen, allowing you to customize the keys for any application such a localized layouts, photoshop, game layouts and so on.

The product is called “Клавиатура Optimus” on it’s russian website, but you will want to check out those neat images, I do suspect the quality is worse than depicted in real life, but I am looking forward to seeing this being standardized, or bought by logitech! Whichever comes first..

UPDATE: Added link to english product page, please note that this product is not yet in mass-production, if even in prototype stage.

* Optimus Keyboard
* Клавиатура Optimus (Russian)

BishopBerkeley writes “Nature has an interesting nugget about the second meeting of the Image and Meaning Initiative which was held at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It is about the use of graphics in presenting scientific data. I am also a big advocate of using nice graphics in scientific presentations, but I also agree with Felice Franel, the founder of I-M, that not all images are meaningful scientifically. In fact, one encounters (and I am ashamed to admit that I have published) images that look nice but have no scientific import at all. One very cool Harvard physics professor, Eric Heller, produces wickedly beautiful (and meaningful) images of quantum mechanical models. These images have made the covers of Science and Nature, and are featured in his online art gallery, which was reviewed in the New York Times in 2002.” And of course, any mention of graphic information should not go by without a big shout out to Edward Tufte.

* Slashdot | Graphics in Science

Also see
* Escherization

Wulffmorgenthaler presents:

The iGun!!

Soon you will wish to be shot with this handy gadget

* Wulffmorgenthaler - The daily comic strip. Great cartoon and comic books.

Michael Urban wrote “One of the biggest frustrations with GUI design in Java is struggling with layout managers to get complex forms to look good. However, that will all soon be a thing of the past. ”

“…Think he is using absolute positioning? He’s not. That’s a new feature called Matisse. What is so magic about it? Matisse lets you design your form as if you were using absolute positioning. You simply drag your components to where you want them and set them to the size you want by dragging. NetBeans takes care of figuring out what layout managers are needed, and of writing all of the code for you to make your form look the way you design it using ‘Drag, drop, and stretch’…”

See example Flash demo and get more info on the Matisse GUI Designer at Javalobby at the link below.

* Coming Soon: Magic in NetBeans Form Designer. | Javalobby.org

Also see:
* Project Matisse is coming! | Netbeans.org

I have been a major Star Wars fan since I was about six years old, and I can tell you quite simply: It was worth the wait!
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a magnificent ending on one of the greatest sagas of all time (including future). First I must emphasize the visuals in this movie WILL blow you away, it’s just ludicrous cool quality constantly and it is very hard to point a finger at just about any of the visuals. The sound is just as good as the first trilogy, although I must admit listening to the sweet music was not the top priority when seeing it the first time. Hayden (Anakin) does a really good job of turning evil, compared to his pretty vague performance in Episode II, you can easily tell that his skills have improved, but I’m sure his script has too!
Personally I think the ‘turning evil’ part happens a little to quick, but I guess the show must go on, this movie is just like going nuts in a candy store, sweet treats everywhere. Even though this is by far the most dark of the films, it’s quite possibly also the most laugh-inducing, being filled with small jokes and silly comments especially from our droid friends. The movie puts many things in perspective and you will be given a great deal of information that will combine the whole saga in to one mother of a force-tale…
I rate it at 9.8 out of 10, were it not for a few worrying details it would be perfect, but again nothing can be that perfect..? - Thanks Lucas, I owe you one!