Microsoft has unveiled the new Comfort Curve Keyboard 3000, the company's latest keyboard offering superior comfort and an ergonomist-approved contour shape. You'll be able to buy it in August from Amazon, Office Depot, and Microsoft.com for $20, though you should know that it requires either Windows XP (excluding Windows XP 64-bit), Windows Vista, or Windows 7.

In creating this keyboard, Microsoft says it was challenged by the following question: how should we provide better comfort and posture for people who prefer working with a straight keyboard? The Comfort Curve Keyboard 3000 is for those who want comfort, but who don't like a split keyboard. The peripheral features a slim, glossy design and a contour key-bed, providing familiar key size and placement while saving space on users' desktops. There are also media keys for quickly accessing music, videos, and so on.

Building on the original Comfort Curve, this new key layout is designed to be a better option for straight-keyboard users and has been improved in two fundamental ways. First, the QWERTY keys are uniformly sized in a way that is more similar to a standard straight keyboard. That increases the familiarity. Second, the curve has been modified to be more organic – adding curvature in the third dimension to further increase the comfort.

Microsoft says it took the company three years to design and build this product, thanks to multiple rounds of research and iteration. If you need a new keyboard, want to take care of your wrists, but don't want to spend a lot, this appears to be a good bet. It's not going to blow your mind away, but it should save you a pretty penny.