Number Keypad Film For Touchpad Provides The Missing Link For MacBook

This week a rather simplistic approach for getting that all-powerful number-centric keyboard of calculations, aka the keypad, has been revealed by designers Gong Huachao and Wang Hui. What we've got here is a transparent film that fits over your touchpad that shows numbers and a few buttons for calculations, this working with an application that allows your computer to recognize the different taps you make on the touchpad as the numbers and symbols you've tapped. A better strange use for the above-average sensitivity of the touchpad on your MacBook has never been seen.

This raises the question though: what better use could there be for the touchpad on your MacBook? You've got a masterpiece of a space down there where you fingers can direct the whole show you see on your HD display, and most people just use it to scroll up and down in their browser window and double-click on icons. With this keypad film and the connected application that goes with it, the future is here!

This Pad Film for TouchPad is a 2011 red dot design concept winning entry, which means that it's not quite ready for the marketplace, but it is well on its way to getting there. In addition to the keys you see here in the basic film, you can also attach custom keys to do whatever you like on your computer, and whenever you need to start scrolling again, just hit the hotkey combination alt + x. Hotkey combination again to turn the keypad on again – simple stuff!

[via Yanko Design]