Posted 10.05.2009 at 11:21 am
13 Comments
Microsoft Applied Sciences Mouse Concepts (from left to right: FTIR Mouse, Arty Mouse, Orb Mouse, Side Mouse)
By now you know the Windows 7 line, but in case you've somehow missed it: it's the first major computer operating system to support multitouch, meaning it (like an iPhone) can read more than one finger press at a time. Of course, in order to take advantage of touch, you need to upgrade your hardware -- for a premium price, naturally.
Multitouch screens add a couple hundred bucks to the price of a monitor or laptop screen, but Microsoft's Applied Sciences group is working to make it more available to the masses with peripherals. We got a sneak peek at five mouse concepts that read multitouch gestures from MS's Dan Rosenfield and Shahram Izadi. There no word on when any of 'em will be mass-produced.
FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) Mouse: A infrared camera shines through a curved plastic sheet on which your fingers rest to track your finger ticks (like pinching and scrolling) while a regular mouse sensor under the palmrest tracks movement.
Orb Mouse: This design also uses an IR camera to see how your hand moves, but instead of only tracking your fingers, it keeps an eye on your whole hand underneath its dome. Gestures are tracked through a mirror that reflects movement onto the camera lens.
Cap Mouse: Short for "Capacitive Mouse," the Cap uses a curved multitouch surface on the front half of the mouse, essentially morphing it into a curved touchscreen.
Side Mouse: More palm rest than mouse, the Side mouse doesn't have any touch sensors, but follows your fingers with a projected laser, thus turning your desktop into the defacto touch surface. Of the concepts, this one creates the largest mustitouch area overall; the laser can see directly in front of the rest and up to 60 degrees on either side.
Arty Mouse: The so-called "Articulated Mouse" tracks your index finger and thumb on separate pads, which makes it ideal for more minute tasks, like manipulating 3D rendering (or CAD) software.
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I got a better idea. the idea comes from my glass mouspad.
Make a surface of quarter inch buttons. cover this with a touch sensitive layer. then the entire mouspad is the mouse. you move your hand around as the mouse and when you press the pad the buttons are clicked. kinda like the blackberry storm with the touchable screen.
just need to teach the mouse pad (wow a pun) to ignore the heel of the palm.
this will allow up to 5 buttons if you can teach the program to recognize what fingers are touching the pad. testing the idea myself i find all 5 fingers touch a surface at a time when your hand is on it.
oh, also, count the pointer finger as the pointer zero point. duh. forgive my lack of technical terms.
i call dibs on the concept.
Oh good. I was worried I'd never contract full blown Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Ergonomic-mania LOL.
from Wilcox, Nebraska
Forgive me Thumper_DS, but that sounds like a trackpad with a few extra buttons... The trackpad that macintosh places on their laptops has the capability to let you tap the actual pad as well as the button to click.
So do pcs but he means more than just a left and (for pc users) right click
"Windows 7 line (...) it's the first major computer operating system to support multitouch"
OS X has supported multi-touch for a few years now, didn't Windoze 7 just come out?
Hk, so the main selling point is you can zoom? Weak! And what if you are missing a fingers? Yeah sucks for you I guess.
are you kidding me tor? the only multitouch os that apple has is the iphone and even if they did have a multitouch os there isnt a multitouch screen for macs
scigeek96 so wrong try again. OS X Snow Leopard supports multi touch just like the iphone. So no Windose 7 is not the first operating system to support multi touch. The important word is "natively" this is craptastic marketing by windows. They are saying that windows 7 is the first fully NEW operating system to support multi touch. Technically Snow Leopard is an upgrade to Leopard......so yes as always windows is behind the times, but likes to make people think they are on the forefront of yesterdays technology!!
hopefully this will bring the prices down on multitouch
and now apple, so ten days after this article is published apple releases the magic mouse, and btw when you run XP in bootcamp, and install the drivers all multi touch functions come over from the mac, so in summary, apple brought multitouch to XP before windows released an OS capable of it.
THE MIGHTY MOUSE!
THE WORLDS MOST UN_ERGONOMIC MOUSE!!!
HOORAY!