A unique product announced by Asustek Computer early this year, the Eee Keyboard, will hit markets in Europe and North America starting in October, a top executive at the company said Monday.
The Eee Keyboard is a standard-sized computer keyboard with a built-in computer and 5-inch touchscreen on the right-hand side of the board. The device is designed to connect via wires or wirelessly to any device with a display screen, such as monitor, an LCD TV or a digital projector.
Asustek is promoting the device for household use. “We want to make the product useful for many things in the house, the home PC and LCD TV, for example,” said Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek, at a news conference in Taipei.
The company envisions people carrying the Eee Keyboard around the house and using it to access the Internet or play games on their LCD TV or as a wireless keyboard at their computer desk. The Eee Keyboard carries a host of wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0 and Ultra Wideband HDMI (UWB high definition multimedia interface), in addition to ports for a number of connections, including USB 2.0, a VGA port, HDMI ports, and connections for headphones and microphones.
The device has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessor inside, 1GB of DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) DRAM and an onboard 16GB or 32GB SSD (solid state drive) to store data.
An Asustek representative said a final price has not yet been announced for the Eee Keyboard.
Asustek unveiled the Eee Keyboard at a news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.