Behold! Neat-o Keyboard from the Future!

Have a look at this new British MIDI controller interface called the Axis Natural Keyboard.

A traditional piano keyboard looks like this:

Whereas, this instrument looks like this:


I had thought this layout was a completely original, from-the-future concept. But like all ideas, it has some connection to the past. Here's a musical reed instrument produced in the 1950s with a similar interface, the Harmonetta.