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:: WIRELESS KEYBOARD FOR SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS ::
Technical Briefing
Design
With S.T.R.I.K.E.M Mad Catz has a lofty ambition - to redefine the
category of Bluetooth keyboards. Rather than being constrained
to multimedia, or compromised mobile office use, we wanted
something altogether more exciting – a keyboard that doesn’t
just suffice – it excels.
Specifications, as you would expect, are class-leading, but
more importantly, the disruptive design accommodates a deep
and thorough understanding the full potential of the mobile
keyboard. S.T.R.I.K.E.M is streamlined and nimble; ergonomic and
tactile; lightweight and powerful.
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:: WIRELESS KEYBOARD FOR SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS ::
Tactile feel
Starting with the basics, before we consider any
features or advance functionality a keyboard has
to be a competent input device. There are obvious
challenges with a mobile keyboard that all too easily
lead to compromise of feel and hence restrict the
long-term performance potential.
Instead of compromise, we chose to engineer a brand
new key module. Our research led us to choose a
60g actuation force with
a crisp click response
as providing the best
balance between size
and allowing the higher
average APM (Actuations
Per Minute) required for
the widest possible
usage scenario.
With an eye to the future,
particularly the evolution
of the living room PC, we have designed in Anti-ghosting in the
WASD key area. It can be used as a full featured lounge gaming
keyboard as well as a mobile or multimedia keyboard. The clear
white backlighting across all the keys means the keyboard can
be used at all
times of the day.
The backlight
brightness can be
altered by pressing
the backlight
button to cycle the
intensity level.
OFN and media control
As a living room keyboard, the S.T.R.I.K.E.M is a completely selfcontained control centre. The easy to access multimedia controls
and volume roller is only part of the story. To enhance the
sofa-browsing experience,
the OFN (Optical Finger
Navigation) touch pad and
dual mouse-button layout
is ideally located so the
keyboard can be easily held
in the hands with a natural access to both mouse buttons and
the pad. The sensor is fast, responsive and accurate.
For web-browsing, searching or navigating on SMART TVs, the
experience is seamless. When used with a Media Centre PC, the
compromise involved in using media remotes is unnecessary.
More to the point, this isn’t just a single purpose keyboard.
When you’re done with
browsing, pop it in your
bag and head off to catch
your train.
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:: WIRELESS KEYBOARD FOR SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS ::
4 devices for
your Bluetooth
Pairing S.T.R.I.K.E.M is simplicity itself. Using
classic Bluetooth, the S.T.R.I.K.E.M is out of box
compatible with virtually any Bluetooth device.
PC’s, Macs, iOS
devices, Android
devices, phones,
tablets, phablets.
The list is endless.
One of our design objectives was to make a keyboard so
comfortable and pleasing to use that you’d want to use it
for everything – so we had to make sure you could use it for
everything and without the frustration of having to un-pair and
re-pair with devices.
S.T.R.I.K.E.M is designed to be able to switch between four
different paired devices at the touch of a button.
What makes
S.T.R.I.K.E.M different?
Aside from the radical design,
offering pairing with four devices,
being a proper gaming-grade
keyboard with anti-ghosting
and backlighting, the thing that
really sets S.T.R.I.K.E.M apart from
other Bluetooth keyboards is its
portability. Of course there are
loads of portable keyboards, but
would you actually take them
anywhere on a regular basis? How
practical are they?
S.T.R.I.K.E.M is feather light, but
that doesn’t mean flimsy, it’s far
from it. The S.T.R.I.K.E.M has been
designed to withstand both the rigours of the daily commute
and the angry-prodding of teen gamers.
We believe, indeed we designed, S.T.R.I.K.E.M to be the first
mobile keyboard that is genuinely usable in each of the target
usage scenarios. If that’s not quite a revolution, we certainly
hope it’s a strong step in the right direction.
Cloud Services will
unlock even more
A number of cloud services are already available on your phone.
For example, OnLive
is already available in
the UK and the USA,
allowing customers to
access quality highdefinition PC games
and applications
directly though their
phones. Applications,
even those requiring
advanced input
devices such as
Adobe’s Photoshop
are already available through the service. Using a S.T.R.I.K.E.M
with your micro-console, phone or tablet means you no longer
even have to install such memory-hungry applications on your
device and you can access your files from anywhere.
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:: WIRELESS KEYBOARD FOR SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS ::
Micro-consoles and TV attached phones –
the future NOW.
‘Play big’ is the vision. Both the new swathe of micro-consoles
and indeed the phones in your pocket have processing power
above and beyond their diminutive size. Both are capable of
being used for personal computing when connected to a big
screen. It’s not just Android games and e-mails either. There is a
growing body of serious office software finding its way onto
your phone.
so throughout 2014 and by mid to late 2015, there is unlikely to
be much difference between the latest console generation and
the phone in your pocket.
There is also a body of AAA titles heading in the direction of
your pocket. Mobile is the platform of the future – there’s little
doubt. Even now, these tiny processors can garner processing
power equal to the last console cycle and it’s beginning to show
through in the games. Gameloft’s Modern Combat 5 looks set to
lift that bar higher and no doubt, more titles will continue to do
even lounge TV. Most Smartphones already allow this using an
inexpensive adapter or similar. With 1080p
output and powerful GPUs, once demonstrated,
it’s clear that the future is already here.
Usage-wise, we envisage that games on mobile phones will
quickly evolve beyond being played on the move and that an
exponentially increasing number of consumers will recognise
the potential to connect their phone to their bedroom TV or