Ran across an interesting article in BusinessWeek magazine on computer maker Lenovo’s rethinking of the computer keyboard.  If you’re reading this from your desktop or laptop, take a look at your keyboard and think of which keys you use.  And look at all you don’t.

Manufacturers have made great advances over the years in computer speed, functionality and design.  We’ve moved to higher resolution LCD monitors. But not much has changed on the keyboard.  A lot of what’s on our keyboards are relics from the DOS era.

Even high-level executives at Lenovo admitted they didn’t know what the SysRq key does.   The answer is it doesn’t do anything for most users. The Systems Request key was used in early PC’s by IBM to help debug programs without interfering with other programs.

Lenovo conducted a year-long key-tracking study of how its sales and marketing staffs pound their keyboards.  They also polled 1,000 customers.  They found that each week, users hit the “Del” and “Esc” keys 700 times a week, more than any other key. So, Lenovo’s  new T400 ThinkPads have “Del” and “Esc” keys that have more than doubled in size.

Lenovo’s study also showed the Scroll Lock and Num Lock keys were used little. When’s the last time you used those keys?  Do you have any idea what the Windows key (pictured above) does?

Other computer makers are rethinking the keyboard. HP’s new netbook, the 5101, has smaller F1-F12 function keys.  Their researchers found that just 10% of users employ those keys. Apple no longer has a number pad on its iMac desktops.

I’m sure there’s a good reason that no one has tackled the modernization of the keyboard.  Probably, “it ain’t broke, so why fix it?”

This past week,  the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, the venerable Sears Tower in Chicago changed names.  It’s now the Willis Tower.

Willis Group Holdings, a  British insurance brokerage concern, is taking a mere three floors in the 110-story skyscraper but got the naming rights as part of an agreement to lease space.  So the Sears Tower now becomes the Willis Tower.

There’s just something wrong with that.   Everything’s up for sale.  Lucas Oil Stadium, Conseco Fieldhouse.  I’ve said it before but, once again, hats off to Max Schumacher and the Indianapolis Indians and Victory Field.

I finally got used to the RCA Building in New York being the GE Building.  But when I look at the Met Life Building there on Park Avenue, I stll see the Pan Am building.  Don’t even think about renaming the Chrysler or Empire State Buildings.

Sears Roebuck and Company, a Chicago institution, moved out in 1992 after nearly two decades there but its sign stayed on.  And, the iconic structure retained that moniker.

Chicagoans have had to bear the brunt of relabeling Marshall Field’s as Macy’s and Comiskey Park as U.S. Cellular Field.  And, for the time being, it’s still Wrigley Field.  Although, with Tribune now facing bringing the Cubs into bankruptcy court, that’s probably up for grabs.

So far, nearly 40,000 people have signed a petition against changing the 110-story landmark to Willis Tower.  It’s probably futile,

Revelations from the National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration (NASA) this week have the Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theory crowd all worked up.

Since the landing on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts 40 years ago, that crowd claims the astronauts did not land on the Moon, that NASA and, possibly others, intentionally deceived the public into believing the landings did occur.  They believe evidence, including photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions, and rock samples, was manufactured, destroyed, or tampered with and that the deception continues to this day.

So this week, the space agency embarrassingly revealed that they can’t locate tapes of the landing. The original videos beamed to Earth were stored on giant reels of tape that each contained 15 minutes of video, along with other data from the moon. In the 1970s and ’80s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them.  I smell Hoax with a capital H.  And, this has conspiracy tongues waggins.

Actually, pulling off such a hoax would have been tougher than actually landing on the Moon. More than 400,000 people worked on the project for nearly ten years, and a dozen men who walked on the Moon returned to Earth to recount their experiences. Hundreds of thousands of people (astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, and skilled laborers) would have had to keep the secret.

However, it is amazing an organization that can get men to the Moon (if indeed they did) can’t archive a record of the billion dollar project.  And, even more amazing that NASA keeps pressing the Congress for more funds so they can travel to Mars.