"Multi-Touch" mice
Posted by KaeHern | | Posted On 8.10.09 at 11:57
A Microsoft hardware research team recently released a paper and video showcasing five different multi-touch mouse implementations that explore different touch sensing strategies, including those optimized for 3-D interaction. They are able to do cool things like pinch, rotate, zoom, and flick on your desktop computer, just by using a multi-touch mouse.
These are still prototypes, and still in the early concept stage, and these weren’t really sculpted at all to fit in your hand. Five of them seem to fly in the face of regular ergonomics.Let's go through them one by one.
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The "Cap Mouse" design is novel in that the device includes a true multi-touch sensor, which lets it simultaneously track the locations of all of the user’s fingers on the surface of the mouse.
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It is "FTIR mouse" which is Frustrated Total Internal Reflection mouse, the technique leverages a sheet of acrylic and the principle of FTIR to illuminate a user’s fingers and it employs an infrared camera to track the different points of touch. It’s extremely high-resolution and can detect the tiniest movements. This one retained the mouse shape almost as well as the Cap mouse.
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The "Orb Mouse", it equipped with an internal camera just like the FTIP mouse and it also equipped with source of diffuse infrared light, tracks the user’s hand all over the “hemispherical surface,” and with its larger sensing interaction area, it lends itself to gamers, who need the whole hand to be engaged.
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The "Arty Mouse", which means articulated mouse, that has potential to change the way users do 3-D manipulation. Its little limbs are for resting your thumb and forefinger on, and each is equipped with an optical mouse sensor. It’s just like a regular mouse with arms.
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This is the last and the most interesting mouse among those five multi-touch mice I think, it called "Side mouse"
Microsoft researchers say this approach lets the input space be larger than the physical bounds of the input device, and it would be much smaller if it were a final product.
![]()
This application shows how the user's fingers are lay on the surface of the mouse.
There are two similar videos that introduce and explain about those five Multi-Touch Mice:
I think these multi-touch mice is really interesting and is a big improvement of normal mouse, it is a good idea that takes the latest multi-touch technology to develop mouse. I’m sure we’ll see some of these technologies in most of the devices we use everyday really soon.
These are still prototypes, and still in the early concept stage, and these weren’t really sculpted at all to fit in your hand. Five of them seem to fly in the face of regular ergonomics.Let's go through them one by one.
_________________________________________________________________
The "Cap Mouse" design is novel in that the device includes a true multi-touch sensor, which lets it simultaneously track the locations of all of the user’s fingers on the surface of the mouse.
_________________________________________________________________
It is "FTIR mouse" which is Frustrated Total Internal Reflection mouse, the technique leverages a sheet of acrylic and the principle of FTIR to illuminate a user’s fingers and it employs an infrared camera to track the different points of touch. It’s extremely high-resolution and can detect the tiniest movements. This one retained the mouse shape almost as well as the Cap mouse._________________________________________________________________
The "Orb Mouse", it equipped with an internal camera just like the FTIP mouse and it also equipped with source of diffuse infrared light, tracks the user’s hand all over the “hemispherical surface,” and with its larger sensing interaction area, it lends itself to gamers, who need the whole hand to be engaged.
_________________________________________________________________
The "Arty Mouse", which means articulated mouse, that has potential to change the way users do 3-D manipulation. Its little limbs are for resting your thumb and forefinger on, and each is equipped with an optical mouse sensor. It’s just like a regular mouse with arms.
_________________________________________________________________
This is the last and the most interesting mouse among those five multi-touch mice I think, it called "Side mouse" The greatest part of "Side mouse" is, it doesn't provide any button even a click area, it is the most unorthodox of all the mice shown.
It had been designed to rest under the user’s palm, senses when the fingers touch the table surface directly, users just need to hits on the surface of the table to get respond.Microsoft researchers say this approach lets the input space be larger than the physical bounds of the input device, and it would be much smaller if it were a final product.
It has a bit hard to describ by using my words, it's better to let the video below to explain for me how it's works :
_________________________________________________________________
This application shows how the user's fingers are lay on the surface of the mouse.
There are two similar videos that introduce and explain about those five Multi-Touch Mice:
I think these multi-touch mice is really interesting and is a big improvement of normal mouse, it is a good idea that takes the latest multi-touch technology to develop mouse. I’m sure we’ll see some of these technologies in most of the devices we use everyday really soon.
