The long awaited Optimus Maximus keyboard from Art Lebdev and company finally has some concrete release details. The keyboard had been sent up as possibly one of the greatest vaporware devices ever, and while all of us saw the keyboard and drooled over it, none of us really expected to be able to get one in the near future. The keyboard is special because in addition to being gorgeous, each key has an OLED screen on top that can be customized to display anything you like. The keyboard can be programmed to display different icons for different languages, different applications, or personal preference. It’s a great idea, and people loved it, and now, if you’re one of the lucky few with a lot of disposable cash, you can have one of your own at the end of the year. The keyboard is expected to be available in November, but only 200 will be made each month between November and December, and then in January of 2008 production will ramp up to 400 keybaords if there’s a demand. The keyboard will cost $1536, apparently chosen because that’s Shakespeare’s birthday, but something tells me that the cost of all of those OLEDs on those keys has something to do with the high price. Let’s hope those things come with hefty warranties, but then again, if you have over $1500 to toss at a keyboard, you might not need one.

[ Engadget :: Optimus Maximus Gets a Price and Date ]

I’m a wordpress fanatic, if you can’t tell – all of my blogs, including this one, are running on top of Wordpress. It’s easy to use, easy to configure, simple to set up and update, and applying a whole new look and feel to your site only takes a matter of moments if you go with a stock theme, and only a matter of days if you customize it. It’s very robust, and pretty popular. So, Wordpress fans, here’s a list of some fabulous themes you can use for your website that you’ve probably never seen before, and all of them are pretty attractive.

Trust me, Wordpress fans – you need a theme. The default wordpress theme is pretty and functional, but it’s kind of bland. Mix it up a little, you have 83 here to choose from in this article alone!

[ Smashing Magazine :: 83 Beautiful Wordpress Themes You (Probably) Haven't Seen ]

(image courtesy of Lifehacker!)

Our fine friends at Lifehacker finally managed to find a way to keep your Google Calendar and contacts synched up with your local calendar, whether it’s iCal on the Mac or Outlook Calendar on the PC, without needing to pay for an application like Spanning Sync, as well as it works.

There’s a beta, open-source app called GCalDeamon that, with a good heaping of configuration and a ton of geekiness, can get the job done in exactly the way you need it done, and best of all it’s completely and totally free. From Lifehacker:

Two-way update and sync between your desktop and the web is the ultimate golden ticket; it gives you offline access, local backup and the rich desktop experience while dealing with data stored in the cloud. With GCalDaemon running, you can view and update your Google Calendar from any desktop calendar program – even if you’re offline. Additionally, you can access your Gmail contacts list in a desktop email program or address book like Thunderbird or Outlook Express.

The best part is that Lifehacker goes through the step by step instructions and how-to, for the benefit of all of us who have been dying to have this kind of functionality.

[ Lifehacker :: Sync Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts to Your Desktop ]

Great news out of the music world this week – Apple and EMI have partnered to begin offering DRM-Free music downloads on the iTunes music store.

The anti-DRM group Defective by Design challenged Steve Jobs to put his words into action when he wrote his now famous open letter, “Thoughts on Music,” denouncing DRM earlier this year, and gave him until April to make good on his desires, and he did; EMI is planning to offer their entire music catalog on iTunes in both DRM’d and DRM-free formats. The DRM-free formats will still be AACs, just unprotected so they can be convered into any format and played on any media player. Additionally, the AACs will be higher quality as well, at 256kbps. The new DRM-Free tracks will also be a touch more expensive, downloadable at $1.29 per track as opposed to their $.99 counterparts with copy-protection, but something tells me that that won’t stand in anyone’s way – the DRM-Free downloads will likely flourish now that they’re available, and the higher quality means they can be recompressed or converted without the audiophiles whining about degraded quality.

Jobs also pointed out that he expects other major labels to follow suit in the near future and open up their content as well, and offer DRM-free downloads with iTunes as well. Whether this really is the end of the DRM era remains to be seen, but given the things we’ve seen, from Sony’s rootkit DRM to lawsuits from EU member states, we can only hope it is.

[ Apple :: Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store ]

[ EMI : EMI Music Launches DRM-free Superior Sound Quality Downloads Across its Entire Digital Repertoire ]

[ David Pogue/NY Times: Music To Our Ears from EMI ]