Art Lebedev Studio's long in development Optimus Maximus keyboard has cleared the FCC and will also include an ample amount of storage for its unique design, the company said in its newest project blog entry. The wireless keyboard has successfully passed both the CE and FCC tests needed for the hardware to be sold in the US, allowing the Russian company to export its design. As part of the news, the company also announced that it would ship the Optimus with a 512MB, 150X speed SD card to store all the icons that will appear on each key's individual OLED display as users change programs and keyboard layouts. Users can swap out cards if they need to swap layout sets between computers or if they have many programs to run.
The positive steps are clouded by a slight delay in the actual release of the device, the Studio says. While the miniature OLED screens that form the core of the keyboard were approved in September, batches shipping from Japan will not arrive until late October or early November and will make it difficult for the keyboard to ship on time. Art Lebedev had originally hoped to release the premium device before the end of the year for $1,564 with support for both Mac OS X and Windows PCs.
