A great idea that will never be adopted

The tyranny of the QWERTY keyboard is a relic of the mechanical shortcomings of the 19th century, when it was invented to slow down typists so that typewriter keys wouldn't collide and jam. Now, following in a long tradition of attempting to improve keyboard layouts -- the result of which has been almost zero adoption -- an electrical engineer named John Parkinson is introducing a new keyboard that puts the first half of the alphabet on the left side of the keyboard and the second half on the right side, separated by directional and punctuation keys (picture here). It will be demonstrated at the February 2006 Consumer Electronics show. Retail price is expected to be $70.

Of course, the first barrier to entry here for me is prying $70 out of my cheap little fingers. Then there is the time-cost of getting comfortable with a new keyboard layout. Two major barriers that likely will spell doom for yet another potential efficiency improvement in my life ...