Sonder Design

Sonder Design. is an Australian design studio headquartered in Sydney at Australian Technology Park that designed the Sonder keyboard, a dynamic E Ink keyboard.

Sonder was founded by twin brothers Francisco and Felipe Serra-Martins in 2015. The company has offices in Sydney, Hong Kong and Taipei. Each of its keys is a display which can dynamically change to adapt to the keyboard layout in use or to show the function of the key.

Sonder keyboard.

Overview

The production model uses a single E ink display from E Ink Holdings. The design featured on the design studio's website received attention on the web when it was featured on Wired in July 2015,^[1] and afterwards for two months on other technology websites.^[2][3][4]

The Sonder keyboard allows for greater user interaction, by dynamically displaying the current function of the keys. For example, when the user presses the shift key, the pictures would change to upper-case versions. It would also make switching between different keyboard layouts (such as English and Cyrillic) rapid, and could make the switch to alternative layouts such as Dvorak easier for people who only have a QWERTY keyboard with no possibility of rearranging the keys.

Sonder keyboard module integrated into a Macbook.

Sonder keyboards are scheduled to be integrated into laptops.

Apple acquisition rumors

According to a report by the Guardian ^[5] and the Wall Street Journal,^[6] Apple had approached the startup for acquisition with the assistance of Foxconn. The Guardian confirmed that Apple CEO, Tim Cook, met with Sonder CEO Serra-Martins; Sonder issued a press release stating Serra-Martins did not meet on Cook in Shenzhen, China on October 26, 2016 as reported.

Production schedule

Some reports indicate that the keyboards will start shipping during 2017. The keyboard is being manufactured by Foxconn.

Similar keyboards

The patent for this "Display Keyboard" (U.S. Patent 5,818,361, filed 1996, published 1998) is held by inventor Elkin Acevedo.[12] However, the first programmable LCD keyboard [13] was developed in the mid-1980s in Germany. This keyboard, sold under the LCBoard name in the U.S. until 1999, contained many of the features of the Optimus keyboard including monochrome graphic icons on each keyboard key, macro programming, context sensitive and application dependent switching between functions. S. Bigbie et al. published related ideas in an IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin (Vol. 21 No. 2 July 1978), as did Alan Bagley of Hewlett-Packard in (U.S. Patent 4,078,257).

A concept design using E Ink technology was created^[7] by Maxim Mezentsev and Aleksander Suhih in 2013.

A patent application filed on March 13, 2007 suggests that Apple Inc. may be working on a similar dynamically changeable organic light-emitting diode (OLED) keyboard.^[8]

Name origin

The design studios name relates to a neologism from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and defined as; n "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own."

Awards

2015 Press Choice at the closing ceremony of Zhongguancun Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2015 in Haidan District Beijing, the Silicon valley of China.

2015 University of Sydney Union INCUBATE alumni.

2015 Good Design Australia Hills Young Australian Designer of the Year, People’s Choice.

2015 Winner of 1776 Challenge Cup Australia Finals

References

External links

• Sonder Design - website of the company