It’s thankfully a fake product, but Google lets you build your own
Google used to be well known for its April Fools’ jokes. From an almost uninterrupted period spanning 2000 to 2019, the company kept up the tradition of giving us at least one joke announcement every April 1st. It stopped doing so because of the pandemic in 2020, and has yet to bring them back, but that hasn’t stopped Google Japan from keeping the spirit alive (even though it’s October). This latest “joke,” though, might be more the stuff of terrors than something funny.
Google Japan has released a video teasing a new, physical Gboard bar (via XDA). It doesn’t look anything like the keyboard on your phone, or as a matter of fact, like any hardware keyboard for a PC that you’ve ever known. Instead, it’s just one long row of characters: all the buttons from your keyboard, lined up end-to-end.
The idea behind it is that instead of looking all over to find the character you need, you can just go down the row in a straight line to find the key you’re looking for. And if the weird shape is too much for you, at least you can use it as a proper staff/stick/bar for reaching things, hiking, or even acting as a ruler. It does have one design advantage — your cat won’t lay on it. Well, probably not.
The keyboard itself is a joke, of course, as you might be able to tell by the video’s chaotic energy — even as the very concept of it seems like a nightmare. Last year, Google Japan also shared a similarly preposterous Gboard “teacup” that channeled the same vibe.
If you’ve somehow convinced yourself this is actually a good idea (or you just want a new, weird piece of tech), Google might not sell one to you, but it will give you instructions on how to build your own. You just need a bunch of Cherry MX switches, a bit of elbow grease, and very bad taste. Check out the company’s official GitHub page for the detailed process if that’s your next DIY project — we dare you to actually use it for a straight week if you do.
