Apple patent suggests multi-touch keyboards might be in the future

Are those graphics indicating that if this technology were to be implemented the keyboard would lose the ability to light up? See how the F5 and F6 buttons are blank, while all the rest have their proper icons on them.
O wait, I guess that's a keyboard for an iMac, not a MBP.

Exciting!! I can totally see this being the next Mac input revolution after multi-touch trackpads. Why should the keyboard have to be a solid surface? I do not think they would design it that way, let alone is it necessary.

No no,

I think this all means they will KEEP the physical buttons on the keyboard, but each key will have a touch sensor imprinted upon itself, therefore when one moves one's hand over the keys(slightly touching them) for example in a specific gesture, it will act as a multi-touch-gesture and perform an action.

This way you can keep the physical feed-back needed by the user and also have multi-touch. It will be like a physical button with a touch layer on top. Imagine typing a message and then scrolling on a page by using your middle and ring fingers going up/down.

I'm sure that once optimized, it would eliminate accidental inputs from when you type.

I understand the attraction - super easy to change the keyboard layout for different tasks. Numeric keypads, different languages, application specific, field specific - all are possible.

But unfortunately this has to get past the problems of lack of feedback.

It turns out that for speed typing the hands are constantly adjusting their position and height from the keyboard, based on feedback from the finger tips which can feel the spring in the keys, the edges of the key tops, etc.