Make Mine Möbius

As both a long-ago math major and someone with an overdeveloped sense of whimsey, I’ve long been fascinated by Möbius strips. You know Möbius strips: they look like they should be two sided, but they are actually one sided (as you can test by tracing a line all the way around without lifting your pencil). They’re simple to make, but deceptively complex (mathematicians would add that it is a non-orientable surface with no boundaries, but let’s not go there).

The Gboard double-sided keyboard. Credit: Google Japan

You probably never found yourself thinking, hmm, I wish I had a keyboard that was a Möbius strip, but the good folks at Google Japan thought some of us wished we had a keyboard that we could type on both sides of. So, voila: they invented a Möbius strip keyboard.

"'I want to use the back of the keyboard as well as the front!'," Google Japan writes, in one translation, of the problem it aimed to solve. "In response to the voice of such users, I made a keyboard that has no front or back. A unique keyboard with two sides. Gboard double-sided version."

“If you turn the keyboard upside down, you can’t type at all. After racking our brains trying to find a solution to this major problem, we came up with this keyboard,” Google Japan noted in another translation of the blog post.

They call it the Gboard double-sided, aka the “Infinity Keyboard.” (I’m kind of disappointed they call a Möbius strip “double-sided,” but I’ll blame the marketing people, not the product people).

"The endless structure has no front or back," Google Japan claims of its design. "You can type at any angle. If you put the Gboard double-sided version [somewhere], suddenly a circle of people will form there. If we used it together, smooth 'teamringWorkin.' You'll come up with some original ideas.” 

One can certainly hope so.

Now, that's teamwork. Credit: Google Japan

The Infinity Keyboard has some 208 mechanical keys, able to be accessed at any angle and from both “sides.” They are laid out in ortho-linear 26x8 layout, with per key RBG lighting (ergo, using as a Christmas wreath is one application the developers mention). The keys are hot-swappable, allowing users to easily customize the array. With all those keys, users can have keys specifically for typing, gaming, and coding, as well as in other languages. Sadly, it isn’t wireless, using a USB-C connection.  

Google Japan estimates it weighs “20.8 donuts,” which Fast Company figures is about 2.2 pounds (based on the weight of a Krispy Kreme Original Glazed).  

Google Japan shows a number of uses for the keyboard, including simultaneous use by several people but also to wear as a bracelet or as the aforementioned Christmas wreath. And, they point out, it would be great in weightless conditions, since it has no top or bottom.

It turns out that Google Japan has been releasing unique keyboard designs each year on October 1, because – I had never counted -- 10/1 = 101 = number of keys on a typical keyboard.  Previous efforts include the Gboard Bar, which has all the keys laid out horizontally (some 5 feet long!), the Gboard Bending Spoon, which allows users to input by – you guessed it – bending a spoon, and Gboard Caps, a wearable keyboard in the (rough) shape of a cap.

Although each of these keyboards exist and are functional, Google has no plans to commercialize them. They’re intended to engender some smiles, and, perhaps, spur some creative thinking. However, Google has made the schematics and firmware open source on GitHub, with 3D printing STL files. You can make one yourself and see what it can do for your creativity/productivity.

Have at it. Credit: Google Japan

Or, if you’re not that technically oriented, they have a PDF that lets you make a paper version just to get a sense of it.  

Marcus Mears III, reviewing the Infinity Keyboard in TechRadar, says: “I love seeing these bizarre keyboard designs pop up…It's this type of ingenuity and playful creation that we need to keep advancing in the world of computer peripherals - where would we be if we never moved on from trackballs and beige membrane keyboards? Certainly not at the Gboard Double-Sided Version.” 

Jesus Diaz, in Fast Company, goes further in his praise: “If anything, this ongoing keyboard joke shows that there’s nobody in the world like the Japanese to create the quirkiest, most fun designs on the planet.” He adds: “Nobody else can compete with their imagination, but here I humbly submit, Google Japan, two final words for the next Gboard: hula hoop.”

I look forward to seeing what they come up with next October.

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We live in a world that, for the most part, has never advanced from the QWERTY keyboard design, which, as you may recall, was originally intended to slow typists down so they wouldn’t jam the typewriter keys. Obviously, it’s been a long time since that’s been our big problem, yet we’ve gotten so used to that layout that we’re still using it. So if it takes a double sided, Infinity keyboard, Möbius strip keyboard to jar our thinking about keyboards (or anything else), I say: good work, Google Japan!

Much as I love the concept, I have to admit that I’ll probably never use a Gboard double sided keyboard, and I’m certainly not going to attempt to build one. But I love that the design team at Google Japan thought of it, and I hope others are inspired to build their own, to play around with it, and to see what new ideas it might spark.

I’ve written before about people trying to break traditional design paradigms – e.g., umbrellas or even the wheel. We get so used to doing things in a particular way using existing designs that we often don’t remember that, hey, other designs are possible, and some of those designs may open up not only new ways of doing the things we’re doing but also help us identify new things to do. Design should be an enabler, not a constraint.

Their video talks about wanting “a keyboard with a twist, one that turns the problem space outside-in.” That’s what design should be helping us do.

You're Not Going to Automate MY Job

Last week U.S. dockworkers struck, for the first time in decades. Their union, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILW), was demanding a 77% pay increase, rejecting an offer of a 50% pay increase from the shipping companies. People worried about the impact on the economy, how it might impact the upcoming election, even if Christmas would be ruined. Some panic hoarding ensued.

Then, just three days later, the strike was over, with an agreement for a 60% wage increase over six years. Work resumed. Everyone’s happy right? Well, no. The agreement is only a truce until January 15, 2025. While money was certainly an issue – it always is – the real issue is automation, and the two sides are far apart on that.

Fighting automation isn't going to work

Most of us aren’t dockworkers, of course, but their union’s attitude towards automation has lessons for our jobs nonetheless.

The advent of shipping containers in the 1960’s (if you haven’t read The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson, I highly recommend it) made increased use of automation in the shipping industry not only possible but inevitable. The ports, the shipping companies, and the unions all knew this, and have been fighting about it ever since. Add better robots and, now, AI to the mix, and one wonders when the whole process will be automated.

This is the world of shipping today. Credit: Logistics Management

Curiously, the U.S. is not a leader in this automation. Margaret Kidd, program director and associate professor of supply chain logistics at the University of Houston, told The Hill: “What most Americans don’t realize is that American exceptionalism does not exist in our port system. Our infrastructure is antiquated. Our use of automation and technology is antiquated.”

Eric Boehm of Reason agrees:

The problem is that American ports need more automation just to catch up with what's considered normal in the rest of the world. For example, automated cranes in use at the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands since the 1990s are 80 percent faster than the human-operated cranes used at the port in Oakland, California, according to an estimate by one trade publication.

The top rated U.S. port in the World Bank’s annual performance index is only 53^rd.  Sixty-two ports worldwide – out of some 1300 – are considered semi- or fully automated. According to Heather Long in WaPo, the U.S. has 3 ports that are considered fully automated and another three that are considered semi-automated.  Loading and unloading times in the U.S. are longer than competing ports. Increased use of automation, in some fashion and to some degree, is necessary to stay competitive.

Yet the dockworkers are unmoved. In a letter to members, the ILW leader vowed: “Let me be clear: we don’t want any form of semi-automation or full automation. We want our jobs—the jobs we have historically done for over 132 years.” He insists the new six-year contract must include “absolute airtight language that there will be no automation or semiautomation” 

“The rest of the world is looking down on us because we’re fighting automation,” said Dennis Daggett, executive vice president of the ILA. “Remember that this industry, this union has always adapted to innovation. But we will never adapt to robots taking our jobs.”

This is what needs to get resolved by January. Wages are important, but only for those who have jobs. It very much reminds me of last year’s Hollywood writer’s strike, which was partly about money, but also about not letting studios use generative AI to do their jobs.

Seem familiar? Credit: Mandalit del Barco/NPR News

It’s worth pointing out that dockworkers may not quite fit the typical blue collar union worker stereotype. The Wall Street Journal reports that the average, full-time dockworkers on the West Coast made $233,000, while more than half of their East Coast counterparts earned over $150,000. Not all dockworkers earn such amounts, nor has full-time work available, but – still.  

Resisting automation is a great rallying cry to union members, but is not realistic. “The argument to stop automation now is slamming the barn door decades after the horse has gotten out. This is not going to work long term. The economic incentives behind it are too strong,” Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, told The Washington Post.

Mr. Levinson told WaPo: “In the past, the longshore unions have agreed to various types of automation, but there’s always been some kind of price attached in terms of protecting the jobs and protecting the union’s jurisdiction. And I assume that there is some price at which this dispute will be resolved.”

Professor Kidd, in The Hill, urged: “The ILA needs to be looking at a long-term vision. There’s no industry — journalism, academia, manufacturing — that hasn’t been changed by technology,”

Along those lines, Erik Brynjolfsson, the director of Standford University’s Digital Economy Lab, suggested to The Hill:

I find it very short-sighted of the dockworkers, or any workers, to be pushing against automation if you can instead, find a way that the gains get shared. I would hope that there’s an opportunity there to strike an agreement where there is a lot more automation, not less automation and that some of the benefits get shared with the dockworkers and others.

This is not just a dockworker’s issue. As Ms. Long wrote in WaPo, “the bigger reason everyone should pay attention is that this is an early battle of well-paid workers against advanced automation. There will be many more to come.” Or, as Allison Morrow quipped in CNN: “The bots come for all of us, which is why the outcome of the port strike is particularly important to watch.”

Maybe you’re not a longshoreman, or a Hollywood writer. But the future is coming for your job too. I was struck by the title of an NYT op-ed by Jonathan Reisman, M.D.: I’m a Doctor. ChatGPT’s Bedside Manner Is Better Than Mine. As Dr. Reisman concludes:

In the end, it doesn’t actually matter if doctors feel compassion or empathy toward patients; it only matters if they act like it. In much the same way, it doesn’t matter that A.I. has no idea what we, or it, are even talking about.

I think of another quote from Professor Brynjolfsson, from a WSJ article earlier this year: “This recognizes that tasks—not jobs, products, or skills—are the fundamental units of organizations.”  I.e., when it comes to thinking about the future of your job, you really need to be recognizing which tasks in it could be done as well or better by automation/AI. They’re going to be more than you might like.  

The future is here.