In a recent blog post on Crave, Mike Yamamoto blogs about the OrbiTouch, a keyless keyboard. It's controlled by two round "domes," each of which you can slide into eight positions. It's nothing like QWERTY: each quadrant on the right side has five letters, numbers, or symbols, each in one of eight colors. Slide the dome to one of the quadrants, and then slide the dome on the left to the segment of the color that corresponds to the letter you want. There, you've typed one letter! Mouse mode is more intuitive: slide the right dome around to point the cursor, then move the left dome to the right or left to right or left click. Currently, the OrbiTouch is running for $400.
Talk about outside the box creativity! I would be curious to see if this style of input device catches on. QWERTY has been here for a while, and likely the power of tradition will continue to provide itself with vitality unless a competitor can best QWERTY. Will OrbiTouch be that device?