Redmond planning to launch a new keyboard soon

Aug 19, 2020 04:13 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is now a hardware company too, and in addition to Surface laptops and Android phones, it’s also building PC peripherals like mice and keyboard.

And as it turns out, the software giant is now working on a brand-new keyboard for the PC, and in addition to a Surface-inspired design, this one also comes with a new button.

By the looks of things, the new keyboard will feature what seems to be a dedicated emoji key that’s placed right next to the right Alt button.

What this new key does is launch the emoji UI that comes bundled with Windows 10 and which Microsoft has made a big deal in the last few OS feature updates.

Furthermore, it looks like Microsoft has also redesigned the F1 button, which now appears to be supposed to control the Bluetooth connectivity. Most likely, this new key will allow users to enable and disable Bluetooth a little bit faster, albeit in Windows 10, the whole thing is possible right from a dedicated quick action in the Action Center.

No release information

At this point, it’s not yet known when this new keyboard is supposed to launch, but it’s very clear it would be first and foremost aimed at Windows 10 devices. Microsoft has obviously remained tight-lipped on all its plans in this regard, but expect more info to be shared soon.

At the same time, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see Microsoft’s partners build similar keyboards with a dedicated key for the emoji UI in Windows 10.

For the time being, anyone who wants to launch the emoji panel in Windows 10 can just press the Windows key + ;. This works in the most recent Windows 10 versions, including the May 2020 Update (version 2004), which is now rolling out to devices across the world.