The folks at Art Lebedev are busy little elves. They are working on a new keyboard that carries the Optimus name, but this time it will be smaller as evidenced by the above pic. It’s going by the codename Popularis.

There will be no OLED keys on this one, since it will be used on an entirely different principle although they did not mention what that might be. What we do know is that there will be 11 additional keys above the F-keys, and it will cost below $1,000.

Keyboards are mostly made out of plastic, which means that with few exceptions, they aren’t very durable and they aren’t very pretty. Which is why this shiny keyboard caught your attention. That’s exactly what Enermax wanted to do with it’s KB006U keyboard. It’s constructed from aluminum, so you are not going to want to abuse it by slamming a hand into it after losing to your opponent in a game.

The KB006U keyboard will be available in silver and black, at least in Japan on May 18th. It also includes a few USB 2.0 ports to hook up more peripherals. No word on price yet.

When it comes to gaming keyboards I am used to seeing fancy LCD screens and colorful backlighting and the latest from SteelSeries offers neither of those. The only thing you will probably miss during a late night gaming session is the backlighting.

The new SteelSeries 7G keyboard could well be the last keyboard you ever buy. Rather than membrane keys that wear out after only 1-5 million key strokes the 7G uses mechanical switches that promise a life span 10 times longer at 50 million keystrokes. Hopefully the printed letters and symbol on the key tops will last that long as well.

Now you have no excuse, except for maybe the price, not to pick up one of those Optimus Maximus keyboards for yourself. ThinkGeek is now shipping the Art Lebedev creation for the incredible price of $1589.99.

If you’ve got yourself a fancy gold computer, you probably won’t even notice the $214.21 it’ll cost you to get one of these hand made, gold covered keyboards. On the other hand, if the Midas touch isn’t exactly your thing and you’re bored with your Fort Knox theme, you can also get a handmade keyboard in a flowery pink, flowery yellow, red with bunny things on it, or even green with squiggly white lines.

The hand-made aspect looks questionable, but they are nice looking and they beat a plain old keyboard.

Not sure what to do with your old keyboards? Why not make an awesome, but completely harmless viper out of them. Harmless to everything but computer mice at any rate. Awesome. Totally awesome I say. The only thing better would be to use black keys and create an even larger King Cobra. Man, I would like to see one of those kids get bit. Is that wrong?

The Dynamo Green Keyboard is a pretty pretty interesting one. Supposedly it helps you lower your monthly power bill, but there’s one catch. You have to keep typing. That’s because it has the capability of harnessing the power of kinetic energy when typing, turning the energy into electricity, which will then help power the computer you’re using.

It’s a neat idea, but I think you would have to be a speed typer who never removes your fingers from the keys in order to get the job done. And how much would you save? I think what we have here is a cool keyboard that may or may not glow like it’s radioactive, for £59.99.

Desk top space is a precious thing. We save it wherever we can, but it just seems to get reclaimed by something else. This should help. The ZPC-GX31 will save you desktop space by putting an Intel Core Duo PC with a CDRW/DVD drive and a card reader inside a “normal size keyboard”.

Some features are Dual Display capabilities, 4MB of DDR2/667MHz RAM, 1Gb LAN and DVI interface. They claim that this is a complete personal computer that takes up no more space than a typical keyboard. Just put it on your desktop, plug in a monitor and you are done. You can customize the ZPC-GX31 All-in-One PC to fit whatever your needs may be, which makes the price range anywhere from $629 to $1099. While it does admittedly look like an old Commodore 64 I still have to ask myself, is this the future as far as home PC’s are concerned?

Microsoft is showing off today a new wireless laser desktop combo which is somewhat designer focused. It is called the Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 7000 and it prices around $130.

The Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 7000 is what Microsoft called “Windows Aero inspired.” It offers up a thin design in the keyboard, complete with “smoked” translucent border and “floating” keys which can be personalized. The keyboard also is designed to be ergonomically friendly.

Look around your desk and keyboard area. Go ahead. I’ll wait. You see all that clutter that’s taking up valuable real estate? I’m not judging you. It happens. The Keyboard Organizer wants to help you keep your keyboard area tidy and organized. It’s the world’s first patented storage caddy inside of a working keyboard!

Think of all the stuff you can hide from your friends. Granted, it’s probably going to be all useless stuff like paperclips and Rainbow Brite stickers, but it’s always cool to have a hiding place. It works all the latest PCs as long as you still have PS/2 input. And you can get one for only about $50.

If you pre-ordered one of those Optimus Maximus keyboards last year then you might be seeing it on your doorstep soon as the Art Lebedev studio has finally started shipping them, at least the ones without the passive keys. In case you don’t remember, this keyboard is the one that has an individual OLED display for each key, letting you customize each display and function the the Configurator software which is also available for download now.

The Art Lebedev site is showing four different configurations of the keyboard ranging in price from about $1560 USD for a keyboard with all 113 active keys, down to just $462 USD for a keyboard with just the spacebar active. The company says you get sucked in with just the one key to start with and buy more active keys to replace the passive ones as you can afford them. The passive keyboard models will be available in another month.

You work in an area, like a hospital, where contagious germs abound. Or, you are simply very germ phobic. Either way you probably wouldn’t mind getting your gloved hands on a computer keyboard which is dishwasher safe. Meet the Silver Seal from Seal Shield, announced first last year and now available.

The Silver Seal keyboard is, according to Seal Shield, fully submersible, dishwasher safe and manufactured from special plastic. This plastic is antimicrobial, using “all natural” pure silver ions embedded in it to ward off germs. Silver is described as a “natural antibacterial product” - hence why it has been incorporated into the plastic.

With the BKBU-SKJ109/SV Buffalo keyboard and built-in Skype phone, you’ll have everything you need to communicate with the outside world right at your fingertips. This would be a great addition to any evil villains HQ, whether your mind is on the business of the day or taking over the world by night.(Though you might look a tad dorky on the phone as it looks a bit like a toy.)

The receiver is Skype certified, so it’s pretty much ready to go. You just need Skype on your machine and the appropriate software. The downside, as mentioned earlier is that the set is pretty small. I know they didn’t want to make the keyboard larger then necessary, but it is a bit funny looking. That’s okay though, once you take over the world, no one will laugh. Until then just tell yourself size doesn’t matter.

Logitech has revealed at CES a new keyboard-and-mouse combination which features its well regarded MX Revolution cordless laser mouse and a premium keyboard. It’s called the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500 Revolution and it is set to price at around $170.

The Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500 Revolution features prominently Logitech’s MX Revolution mouse. It sports a special scroll wheel, among other features, which lets users either zip through Web pages and documents or lets them have precision movement through lists and such. It’s joined by a keyboard which has a built-in LCD screen to display information like ime and date, calculator, temperature, Web site favorites, a keystroke counter, e-mail updates and media information, such as band and song titles.

Say you have your PC connected to your television. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a small keyboard to help you control your PC entertainment? Logitech has your answer at CES - the new Logitech diNovo Mini, priced at around $150.

The Logitech diNovo Mini is a mini-keyboard which uses Bluetooth 2.0 technology to communicate with a linked PC. Through the diNovo Mini you can control Web and media functions like you were using a full keyboard. There’s a self described “ClickPad” which can be used either as a touch pad for mouse-like functions or as a directional pad to navigate and make selections. The ClickPad features as well two backlight modes.