Keyboards have been gaining increasing importance over time, and today we have a whole world of possibilities, to which a most peculiar creation has now been added. This is Google’s Gboard Bar keyboard, an option that stands out for a design where all the keys are in a single row. This arrangement makes the keyboard measure nothing less than 1.65 meters in length, but at Google, they say that (if you have long arms) you’ll find the key you’re looking for faster.
The idea originated from Google Japan, whose creators were inspired by the Japanese word for “keyboard,” which is “kii-bou-do”. For years, the industry has focused on the first part, “key” (kii), but not so much on the second, “bar” (bou).
Gboard Bar Unique Design and Construction
The resulting design places all the keys in a long row following the QWERTY layout: the letters come first, followed by the numbers, function keys, and, on the far right, the Enter key.
The proposal was accompanied by a lighthearted video joking about the possible additional applications of this keyboard. Although the tone is ironic and playful, the truth is that the keyboard can actually be built. In fact, Google has published all the necessary instructions on GitHub, though they caution that it is “not an officially supported product by Google”.
It’s curious that Google released something like this without waiting for an ‘April Fools’ Day’—the day of Holy Innocents in the United States. However, this is certainly a playful nod that harks back to the early days of this tech giant, when their tone was more relaxed, and these kinds of crazy ideas were more common.
