Google Japan’s concept keyboard is inspired by rotary phones

Following an April Fools’ Day prank in 2021 that had a delayed reveal as a result of the pandemic, Google Japan has been cooking up weird and wonderful keyboard concepts year after year. Its latest creation seems straight out of an alternate dimension where touch-tone technology never replaced rotary phones, and that functionality eventually found its way into other devices.

Instead of keys, the Gboard Dial Version keyboard features various alphanumeric characters and functions laid out beneath a series of nine dials of various sizes, including one just for the return key. To type a specific character, you stick your finger in its corresponding hole and then rotate the dial until you reach its limit. When you release it, the dial rotates back.

Rotary phones used a technique called pulse dialing, where a spring-loaded dial generated a series of electrical pulses as it rotated back to its home position. The phone company would decode those pulses to determine what number was being dialed. Google Japan’s Gboard Dial Version trades pulse dialing for modern sensors that translate each dial’s rotational movements into USB signals.

And similar to the phones of yesteryear that ended a call when you physically hung them up, the dial keyboard’s designers created an accompanying stand that turns off your webcam during a video call when you place your mouse atop it.