In its continuing quest to slap the Eee PC brand name on almost everything it produces, Asus pulled an Eee Keyboard out of its hat last night. The Eee Keyboard features a full keyboard, a small touchscreen display, and a built in computer. It connects to your TV with a wireless HDMI connection. In other words, it can turn your HDTV into a computer monitor, allowing you to turn any TV in your house into a multimedia PC.
The keyboard weighs less than 2 pounds and while Asus doesn’t have a price or a release date yet, the company does say the product is real and the unit Shih is holding in the picture is a nearly finished prototype.
Check out some slides from the Asus presentation after the break.
That keyboard is so beautiful ,I want to have one.
Remote controls are more situable for HTPCs, because they’re smaller. My ideal setup would be a HTPC and a remote control with a smartphone-like QWERTY keyboard and dedicated multimedia keys, which should also work as a wireless home phone, with the HTPC having VoIP functions. It would also work as a gamepad, in case that the HTPC is enough powerful to play ultimate games. Other possible controllers are a full touchscreen one or why not your favorite mobile phone. Althrough a keyboard would be nice for those who hate thumb keyboards.
I also think this is a cool idea. The only downside I can see is battery life. I don’t think this will be of much benefit if I have to have it plugged in. Though realistically I can’t see any other way of them doing it. While I give them an A+ in design and ingenuity, I can’t see this being a better solution then a dedicated HTPC and wireless keyboard. That is, with our current battery technology…
WebTv 2.0? Actually with today’s hardware (PC and TV) this could be really cool. Hope it will be powerful enough to play youtube HD and Hulu video.
HDTV makes a difference I’m sure. My mom had a WebTV 1.0 and it was not great because a SDTV was no match for a computer screen. Also, WebTV was a weak system for the ever evolving internet.