Summary: Keyboards are such a part of our daily lives. We're typing this now on one: an Apple membrane keyboard that's about 12 years old.<br> <br> You may not think a lot about your keyboard even though you spend so much time with it. Janet talks with Jon, Community Lead at The Restart Project, and Ben Skidmore, long-time Restarter and recent engineering graduate, two big keyboard enthusiasts.<br> <br> They both use mechanical keyboards, which are highly customisable, repairable and durable. Cherry has been a leading manufacturer for decades. Jon and Ben take us on a tour of keyboard sounds, touch, and sights. Jon loves noise, and Ben loathes it.<br> <br> Not everybody will take such an interest in the keys they tap on, but if we take care of keyboards, they can last a long time. We talk about how the Universal Serial Bus (UBS) with its backward compatibility, has allowed for such easy, extended use of keyboards, longer than computers themselves.<br> <br> Then we talk about the future of interfaces, with much attention recently on voice control and emerging work by Google on gesture-based interfaces. These offer the promise of less-embodied interfaces, and potentially freeing us from the physical habits of sitting (or standing) over a keyboard, but they have a long way to go for most of us.<br> <br> To close, we offer some tips on how to shop for a keyboard.
