Lets face it: the days of good’ol keyboard keys are numbered and the MacBook Pro Touch Bar is just the beginning of it all. The future of keyboards is certainly dynamic in nature and with the talk about the Californian tech giant acquiring Australian startup Sonder Design, the possibly seems even more concrete. But before that happens, you have the Function keys-replacing Touch Bar to explore the possibility of dynamic keys. Not surprisingly, the community is quick to jump on the Touch Bar party, creating apps that allows you to see what exactly it can do.
The KnightTouchBar 2000, as it is called, whipped up by developer Anthony Da Moto is one of many such apps that surfaced over the months and while it obviously does nothing more than recreating the chaser animation found on KITT 2000, the highly intelligent vehicle that assisted Michael Knight (played by David ‘Baywatch’ Hasselhoff) in crime fighting in the 80s TV series Knight Rider, it is nevertheless fun to have on one’s MacBook Pro. Like I said, it does nothing more than to put the iconic chaser animation on the narrow strip of OLED touch panel, like it was on the grill of the ever lovely 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, but it is pretty dope nonetheless.
Da Mota even threw in the original TV series theme song to go with the animation to, possibly, enhance your Knight Rider-on-a-laptop experience. So, sit back and relax, and relive the days when you excitedly watch Hasselhoff kicking bad guys’ asses. As you can see from the demo below, the animation is pretty accurate. The only thing it lacks is intelligence and the ability to converse with you. Come to think of it, KITT does puts Siri to shame. If only we are that far into the future…
Anyways, if you want to give it a go, you can download KnightTouchBar 2000 over on Github. But be warned, dealing with this free third-party program does require some geekiness. However, if you aren’t as techy, there’s an app version that will save you the hassle. Don’t have a MacPro Pro Touch Bar? Well, not to worry, there’s an emulator app for that too, so everyone can have a piece of KITT. Don’t you just love the community?
Images: Anthony Da Mota.
