Slashdot Mirror
Airborne Mouse
edpin writes "CNN is reporting this new mouse that works without a surface. You hold the device in your hand and tilt it to where on screen you want it to go. It uses a similar technique to "rock and scroll" developed by Compaq (now HP) a while ago."
This is, in fact, no relation to Mighty Mouse.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
I can't imagine what this would be used for other than clicking for Powerpoint presentations...
How useful could this be? 3D navigation?
If it flies it's a bat, not a mouse.
Imagine what a lanparty would look like with a buncha guys throwing their hands up in the air to avoid being railed...
This isn't a good way to get out of that geek stereotype....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It's great for pr0n in outer space! :P~~~~~~
Suicide.
This isn't anything new - for about the last year or so, we've had a mouse just like that for presentations here at my university - in fact, I think we've got one in each of electronic classrooms for instructors to use. And it doubles as a laser pointer!
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke
this has very limited applications. I think it will be difficult to play games with this, since I use the keyboard also. Then there is the issue of whether I want to hold my hand up in the air when using my mouse in the first place. That has to hurt after a few minutes.
Gyration Ultra
Installation involved popping the receiver into a USB port and giving the mouse a nine-hour charge in the supplied charging pod.
The review doesn't say how long the charge lasts but I certainly hope it lasts a while if you have to charge it for 9 hours.
I wonder if it's anything like this device. Seriously though - a pointing device that works without a surface? Possibly that old thumbpad wireless mouse (which was also used primarily (AFAICR) for powerpoint presentations? Possibly a trackball?
It's been done before
its been around for what.. two years now? and its at least 5 times smaller.
I think the guys at Gyration produced mice that weren't bound to the mouse pad eons ago (6+ years... I remember thinking about getting one, but they were *honkin'* expensive).
So what's different, other than being another mouse by the same company?
These sound like they'd be useful at the airport or on the train or somewhere without a good sized flat surface. If I'm at home though, I can't image i want to be waving my hands out in front of me manipulating a pointer. It's such much easier to have my hand resting on the desk,
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
Didn't Gyration Inc develop something like this about 5 or 6 years ago?
This sig no verb.
But is this really any more accurate than, say, a joystick? The advantage of a mouse is that mouse movements by your hand map directly to your screen. With practice you can just move it and get very close to the desired point. A joystick like device lets you control the rate of change of pointer position, not the position directly itself. While useful for some things, for aiming my railgun or getting work done this gadget is junk.
We've been using the Gyromouse Pro from these guys for a while now. It works great and the recharging base is a plus. The only difference I can see from what we use and the new one is that the new one is optical when you use it on the desk, whereas the gyro pro still uses old ball technology.
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
This device seems like it would have very limited uses. When I am using my computer for work and play I normally don't have my left hand dedicated to my mouse (like right now, I am typing with it). It is nice to just lay my hand right on top of the mouse and be ready to go. With this I would actually have to pick it up and that would take just a second longer, but it would be enough to irritate I think. Any application where you use your hand exculsivly for your mouse (or 90% of the time atleast) might be a use for this, but then there is a question of control. Do I get fine precision with this new airborne mouse? I have to think I wouldn't...but I don't honestly know.
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With a little experimentation, the reviewer found that he could easily control the cursor by moving his whole arm, or, with the mouse held in both hands, his whole torso.
There have got to be some interactive porn applications just waiting to be tapped here... lyd
Just produce it in Germany, and we've got the best of both worlds.
click it with your tongue. Great for surfing pr0n sites!
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
You have to hold a trigger whenever you're using it? Did some surgeons that treat RSI come up with this?
There was a very similar device for the Atari 800. I have forgotten the exact name, but it relied on mercury (again, IIRC) switches and doubled as a joystick for playing games. It took some getting used to, but it pretty neat.
I'd hardly call this revolutionary.
On a side note, I've sold a few items *very close* to this to presentation researchers. Wireless hand-held mice that allow the professors to give power point slide shows while still being able to walk around and point at other things.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Add force-feedback to it and I see it as a huge hit within the porn industry....
This has been around for years. (ok, maybe not wireless) I have a Gyropoint mouse that I bought about four or five years ago that does the same thing.
To watch one of your hall-mates in college flail about wildly playing Quake with a device like that.
Zech Harvey, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
A boxing game with one of these in each hand?
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
I worked in a computer store back in 198-mumble, that sold a mercury switch based free motion joystick.
Made playing Star Raider on those old Atari 400/800s into an aerobic exercise...
...is a gyro mouse like this, but one that attaches to your hand.
The problem I have with this mouse is, you have to constantly pick it up and put it down when you need to use it. Granted, we have to take a hand off the keyboard to operate our current meeses, but sliding a mouse a quarter-inch across the table is somewhat less involved than picking one up, re-orienting it with the screen (after all, once you've picked it up, the cursor has moved), pointing and clicking at what you want, and finally putting it down again.
Why not a small device, mounted to the top of your wrist? When you want to point, hit a hotkey that activates the mouse, raise your hand slightly from the keyboard, point-click, hotkey, back to work. The mouse in this article seems more suited to presentations than personal computing.
If this idea gets patented in the future, can I use my slashdot post as 'prior art'?
Giving a slideshow with the mouse, and "talking with your hands" yields a deletion of your presentation...
Geeks begin to have buff right arms from holding their mouse hand up all day...
Grandmothers can no longer accurately point-and-click because of their shaking hands...
Rhythmic up and down hand motions becoming the next gesture-command to surf to persiankitty.com...
Looks to be a great product, but I do not see myself using it on daily basis, seems like it would hurt your wrist to hold it all day long. True you could stand and use it (thus eliminate back strain of sitting in front of the monitor all day long). For those who do a lot of presenting, this will be great, as most projector remotes with built in mouse functionality are ackward to use.....
We had an earlier version of this (Gyro Mouse, same company I think).
I never really liked it. Control is not so good. I think the only place I would want one of these is for giving a presentation in a lecture hall where you need more functionality than "next slide/last slide."
We were using it in a small conference room, everyone seated around a table. Eventually we switched to a cordless trackball. Much better, in my opinion. I also use a cordless trackball when I use the computer and the TV together. (It sits on the armrest of the sofa.)
There was a 3d-input device like this out sometime ago, but it never caught on. From memory, it was simply called "the bat", but this could be a general term much the same as "mouse."
I haven't been able to find any links on google, but a gyroscope-driven bat was definately out several years ago, as I remember considering it as a cool tool for playing descent or quake games (had they come up with proper support for it). It it catches on now, it might indeed be a cool tool for 3d-gamers and developers alike.
But when you lift it, the usual red optical glow disappears and the gyroscopes take over when you depress a big button on the underside.
:)
Ok, let me get this straight - you need to hold down a button on the bottom of the mouse/controller/whatever to move the pointer? That's a bit counter-intuitive, doncha think? What kind of wrist/hand strain is that going to create? How about complicated tasks (I realize this is an impractical example, but how about Diablo II?)
I haven't tried it so I don't know how well the thing works, but it seems like too much of a bother.
Triv
That would look really cool, but imagine the carpal tunnel syndrome your shoulders/elbows would develop :)
Ñ'
..what i'd *really* like is that video-editing thing from minority report. now *that's* cool! as someone's already metioned, your arm would hurt after not long. fairly pointless as well, if yr screen is only in two dimensions. A mouse is great! If it ain't broke and all that...
Several years ago, Till Harbaum added a tilt sensor to his Palm Pilot. Then he wrote Mulg, which is kinda like Marble Madness; if you have the sensor, you can play by tilting the Palm to roll the marble around.
This is STILL the all-time best Palm HW hack I've ever seen.
Is it just me or does no one else recognize that as the handle of a lightsaber? :)
This can take Jedi Knight II to a whole new level if the game supported it.
How long before we start seeing something like this incorporated into some of the home versions of Dance Dance Revolution....
Man, I saw a story on this exact mouse on the local news over a week ago (Wash. DC NBC Channel 4)... is slashdot now lagging behind local news reports in technology information? That would be really scary!
The linked product seems more like a handheld trackpoint and really a mouse. My two cents.
Unfortunately (and this sounds obvious, but comes as a surprise when using it), your wrist lacks the precision that your fingers have. Circle points of reference is easy, but clicking on links is difficult.
I could see where if you were doing a presentation and you wanted some mobility to walk around this would make a lot of sense. As for the office or home office I would think prolonged use while not moving around or standing would cause more fatique then a good old logitechs mouseman... Though on a side note, if you were going to seup a CAVE system, this would be exactly the mouse I'd want.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Sony manufactured the STR-G3 A/V receiver, and one of the selling points was the one button remote. The remote was in the shape of an egg, was battery powered, wireless, and worked in a similar fashion to the mouse in the article (minus the having to hold a button down to move the pointer). All video was routed through the receiver, which was connected to the TV. When you picked up the egg, an OSD appeared and you could muddle with volume, audio sources, etc. It sucked, and that was 1995.
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
I've seen these (albeit without the scroll wheel) over 6 years ago. My friend had one, and although it took a little while to get used to, it was kind of nice since you could sit back and use your computer.
hey! i'm not giving up my desktop mouse any time soon! there's no way that after years of resting my whole arm on tables to use mice could i ever manage to lift it more than a coupe of centimeters to grab a swig of Mountain Dew
I've had one of these for a few years now, not this model, but a different one.
Next : a mouse, shaped like a dime, that you have to press against the wall with your nose?
Better would be to start re-thinking some things more fundamentally. As you suggest, there are new degrees of freedom that could be used to enhance the interface for 3D control. The idea of 'gestures' could be very useful too, but you have to maintain compatibility both with people's familiarity with using mice, and the system and application support for mice.
I think it would be cooler if one of these could be strapped to your hand or wrist so you could still type on the keyboard without putting it down, and also access pointer functions more or less seemlessly. This needs some real hard core UI research and experimentation.
I wanted one of these ever since I saw it in "The Lawnmower Man"
Maybe this can relieve my 'net cramp," the sharp pain in my right shoulder that I have come to blame on using a mouse in an awkward setting (my desk was higher than my shoulder at my old apartment). I'd gladly pay whatever they're asking to eliminate that pain forever...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Well from the article it looks like they are trying to target those who are not trying to hurt there wrist, but in the add itself they say it responds to movment of the wrist, arm or Anything! Other then the arm and wrist what is there? I will move my body just to move the cursor? This is pure bull, you will move your wrist. Now, what hurts the wrist? Why moving it! What makes them think that holding this will help in anyway? The sad thing is that they are going to sucker in some people who are trying to help their hands. As much as it stinks trackballs are just about the only mouse that I (and many of my friends) have found to work for hurt wrists because they don't move the wrist, but only the thumb.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
I've had a "flying mouse for over 4 years now. Made by Handykey and built into their twiddler device.
you simply press the mousing button and gesture to move the mouse.
and in fact I remember back in 1993-1994 many MANY people using nintendo powergloves as mice for windows 3.11 and Logitech had a wireless "airmouse offering back in the mid 90's.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you are walking around a big hall and interacting with students, etc. during your presentation, you could easily get out of range.
LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
A few weeks ago, the laptop I gave to my parents packed up (well the win98 installation gave up)... and my Dad; the definate 'luddite' who doesn't like stuff he doesn't understand, had gotten used to the laptop mousepad.
I caught him trying to use another workstation I had set up, and he was stood there moving the mouse through the air, then followed by shaking it violently (while cursing under his breath that is wasn't working) and then he found the ball at the bottom of the mouse actually moved, and started using his finger to move the ball (and cursor) around... I nearly sh*t myself from laughing. So I guess an airboune mouse might have come in handy.
I've since sorted them another workstation up, and decided a mouse might not have survived.. so I got a thumb-trackball mouse from Logitech, which is great, especially considering you don't need half the room needed for a mouse mat and movement room.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
this
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
A few weeks ago I was spammed by someone advertising this mouse. Now they say that it is recently manufactured. Isn't it strange?
Donate free food to the hungry at The Hunger site.
They should just use GPS. Cheaper, easier, and more accurate. Duh!
I had a GyroPoint for about a year, and finally tossed it because it was always a little bit dysfunctional due to battery voltage issues, then finally refused to hold a charge even with new NiCads. I got the impression it was a common fault in their products.
I was buying Gyromice back in 1996. Half the campus here has them. Why on earth does this get a story?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
but once you position the mouse, wouldn't the pointer move once you set the mouse down to type?? Having a mouse rest on a desk lets you leave the pointer where its at..if focus is strictly under the mouse, it would get pretty aggrivating...
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
To Doom, Quake, CounterStrike watchers...
If you see that the player does not lie his hands on the table, then, don't come close. The administration takes no responsability for black eyes, broken teeth, bruises and other trauma that may advent from the fact that the player uses airborne devices...
might cause problems for those on a 36 hour run.... however I suppose much of that could be avoided by using the keyboard... wait, now I'm offtopic.
I can't believe it's not lard!
we might have geeks w/ arm muscles now...
seriously, would you want want to sit at your desk/chair/whatever and hold one of these things up for more than 5 minutes? just thinking about it, i lifted up my ( 3-button ball mouse, but equiv. weight, I'm sure ) mouse for about 30 seconds and realized this would take some getting used to ( and I'm the kind of geek that does push-ups in the morning and rides mountain bikes )
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
I have been duly corrected. And I just had a German test this morning. In my own defense, we're covering home furnishings right now, not bats and/or computer peripherals. ;)
I had a wireless gyroscopic mouse a couple of years ago. I don't remember what brand, but it was too inaccurate and too slow to be any fun to use. I could see it being useful for slide presentations, but for everyday use and gaming, it was impossible to deal with. The comfort factor wasn't so great, either. It's now collecting dust somewhere in my pile of should-have-been-cooler-than-this junk. Hopefully, being optical will help with the accuracy issues, but I'm not going to run right out and spend my money again.
So what are you going to do? Bleed on me?
Use your mouse, and still pee with Forrest Newman!
Be Be Boop Boop Be Be Be Boop Boop!
It seems to be using gyroscope. pretty nifty ;)
;)) but that woulb be really nifty... dammit i will write down this idea for my next robotics project....
And it seems to go up to 30m... and use crypted communication... welll 80$ for that mouse isn't much. should get one of those if i will need to do some boring presentation again... better than cordless trackball...
Actually, same gyroscope technique can be used on joysticks to make them more real (imagine this thing mounted on your both wrists and body in front of huge screen... well for others it might then look like your'e leading an orchestra
* Origin: XBase BBS (2:490/4100) Well the good old days may not return and rocks might melt and sea may burn.
...and the wireless keyboard that they make, also. If found that it was quick and easy to get used to to, and the fact that there is no line-of-sight limitations (radio, 80Hz or something, but don't quote me cuz I'm too lazy to look up the spec) is great. The best part is that if you put it down on a surface, its optical sensor is enabled and it works just like any optical mouse. It's also kinda cool in flight sims :) The battery is is a rechargable NiMH, and they say it lasts for 12 hours of continous use, but I have yet to reach that point so I can't confirm. Both the keyboard and mouse are lightweight, and the keyboard is basically a laptop keyboard with a radio in it, but I personally like small keyboards... All in all, I think the thing is cool and usefull, and you can find the combo for about $80 at a few places online.
ascii art
Posted before on slashdot: Slashdotted before nothing to see here... move along.....
Airborne Mouse + Adobe Photoshop = Jackson Pollock
But I believe Slashdot has covered 1-2 different hacks using these mice as the core. (Or if /. hasn't covered it, it was linked to from discussion - Anyone remember the article on the AI machine road rally contest from somewhere in California to Vegas? There was a link to an open-source helicopter autopilot project that used the electronics from these mice as an attitude sensor.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
and yet there is still no cure for cancer! i dunno.. i guess a flying mouse is neat-- but how does this really help us? sometimes i feel like we're doing things more because we can then because we actually have reason to.
We can finally use a true-to-life controller for all those Jedi games now.
I was amazed when my father was in the hospital, on a resparator and unable to talk, that they had no implementation of a device like this! Does anyone know of an application that uses a wireless mouse to help someone on a resparater. These are people who often find themselves in a hospital bed, with a tube down their throat, unable to talk, and often with their hands tied to the beds. (I was told this is because of all the drugs the patient has often results in halutinations).
I am not much for tinkering, but I would guess that you could set something like this up pretty easy.
If you know of such a device, please reply. I now have a cousin who fell down a flight of stairs over the weekend, and is on a resparator.
Mark
Spending money on computer ergonomics is a wise investment -- way better than the fastest cpu.
...in our conference rooms. They're really nice for presentationns and software demos, though anything that requires precision will suffer a bit.
I find that when I'm using them, I'll use them in the floating mode (they also have a roller and work on flat surfaces) even if I'm sitting down. Waving the mouse seems more natural than sliding it around the surface, especially when you're using a screen the size of a wall (ie, projector).
Switching between waving the mouse and typing on a keyboard does require setting down/picking up the mouse, so it's not practical for cases where you're doing a lot of mousing and typing.
-Chris
The earlier version could work on a wire or wireless (wireless operation ate batteries, though) and was a beauty for clicking because you did it with your thumb, rather than index finger. The thumb is stronger and with it's shorter radius and good dexterity can click much more effectively without fatigue than a finger.
They also had the presentation mouse, which we put in a lecture theater about the same time.
This is merely Gyration receiving some nice press from largely ignorate media.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Major Airlines across the nation are striving for profitability in these tough times. This drive towards profitability is giving rise to some unique new business models. TWA (Trans World Airlines) is leading this new wave of innovation with a new joint venture called TMA or Trans Mouse Airlines. TMA is a joint venture of TWA and the Mice as Equals in our Social Society (MESS). TWA joined MESS because it sees a unique opportunity to raise revenue on its flight business without adding any extra cost. MESS will begin charging the mouse population of our country to fly on domestic and international flights.
I was recently able to ask Mighty Mouse, president of the whole MESS a series of questions about how this will work.
Rodent News Network: Thank you for granting me this interview Mighty Mouse, let me start by asking you why you think the Mouse Population will use this new service?
Mighty Mouse: Well, mice have always been world travelers. I guess that started with the Roman Empire. We traveled to Roam from South East Asia, the to England and the rest of Europe. We came to the US with the Pilgrims, and have established our selves on virtually every landmass on earth. However, travel for us has always been difficult. Up until now we have been unwanted companions. This is the first airline that will cater to the mice and rats that want to travel the world, and we believe that the mouse population will embrace this new service. While very few of us mice have super powers and are able to fly on our own, this new service will let us get to places we have always had difficulty getting to before.
RNN: Just one more question for you, thus far the airlines have been serving the rodent population a tasty greed pellet for lunch they call n-o-c-e-d, will this remain the food of choice, or will we see an improvement in the quality of the food?
MM: While I do not like n-o-c-e-d product myself, as TWA/TMA points out, its about the same quality of food as the humans get, so I guess its equal, and that meets our mandate.
My son had a hissy fit the other day and threw my cordless mouse across the room. The kid damn near took out one godawful ugly lamp. My wife would have grounded him for a month if he had broke the lamp.
I on the otherhand would have given him 20 bucks and a high-five.
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
The mouse does take some getting used to if you're going to use it without a surface. Instead of using it like a normal mouse, it's designed to be held and pointed like a flashlight. Wherever the "flashlight" would shine on the screen, that's where the mouse goes. I must admit, this isn't really practical for most uses outside of things like presentations and such. The best part about these mice isn't the gyroscope feature, it's the wireless range. The model I purchaced is supposed to have a 25ft range, but in practice the real range is closer to 35ft. There's also a 50ft model that's significantly more expensive. These things are great for home theatre PCs. It's really difficult to find an RF wireless mouse and keyboard with a range greater than 6ft.
Have you ever tried holding your hand up for 12-14 hours a day ?
....
What's the point of this ?
Presentations ?
If you _need_ to point during a presentation (or lecture or whatever) you should really consider reworking your slides
On the other side of the screen it all looked so easy.
It seems well suited for presentations where more than simple functionality is needed.
However, I don't see the typical user needing this device.
I had a joystick on my Commodore 64 that did this - you held it in the air and tilted it where you wanted it to go.
yet one more example of someone with an idea that
.. .. same thing. .. trying to navigate through ;)
is not good being overly excited to put that idea
in to production, because it is Their Idea
seriously, wouldn't this just piss you off?
ever play with one of those mazes where you tilt
the board to move the ball around?
the mazes are fun
your desktop with a maze would possibly not be
so much fun
In the early 1990s, I built an airborne gaming and video synthesizer controller based on the keypad equipped Atari Jaguar controller. I used mercury switches at the time and it worked like a dream. And guess what? We called it "Rock and Scroll". Compaq not the first with their Itsi / Itzi device, we were. That said, this new airborne mouse is a nice shape.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
These have existed for AT LEAST two years
Two years? At least 10 years more than that! A colleague of mine back at Wang in the old days had a patent on tilt mice for presenters; he bought his patent back when they laid him off. (Negotiating return of you patents in return for partial waiver of severance is an interesting strategy.) I never say his in production ... unless Gyro is his? and his patent may have run out by now, alas.
Of course, the whole point of tilt-mice is they're wheel-less.
In the neverending quest for am better mouse trap (pun is intented) we now have to worry about tennis elbows...
--Vuzz
Funny this should come up; I was just reading RFC 1 this morning (read it; it's cool), and they mentioned the Lincoln Wand. "What's that?!", I asks myself; so I looked it up. 1966, guys.
I think this may set a new record for Slashdot missing the boat.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
C'mon, this product will only be bought by people like us. And how many of us can actually lift our current mouse for a period longer than 10 minutes at once? At least for games this would be a horrid application. Maybe for looking around the net where most of us use keyboards and the mouse occasionaly.
And with a desktop mouse you're still taking your hand off the keyboard, onto the mouse, off the mouse, and repositioning over the keyboard. The typical use of separate input devices is your bugbear, not the mouse and whether it is hand held or deskbound. Some study revealed GUI designs which lack keyboard shortcuts and require mouse movement are far less efficient. It serves game designers well to remember this. Imagine grabbing a joystick, then leaping to the keyboard, then back to the joystick again. Same problem.
hen there is the issue of whether I want to hold my hand up in the air when using my mouse in the first place. That has to hurt after a few minutes.
Movement can be adjusted for very small arcs to very large arcs. When I had a Gyromouse I could rest my hand on the desk and just lightly move it around, or rest in on my thigh if I wasn't needing keyboard. It was far more relaxing, easier to use and responsive, when I had a Gyromouse (and I'm going to buy another one soon) than any desktop mouse or touchpad.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I had a "handheld joystick" for my Atari 400 computer that had a couple of analog mercury switchs for x- and y-axes. Only one fire button on top, and you looked pretty weird applying "body english" while playing (says my wife). I can't recall the manufacturer, but it cost at least $30, which was WAY more than the cheap analog sticks Atari and others were selling at the time.
This thing was really excellent for Star Raiders, still the best 2-D space shooter ever made, IMO.
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn...
The same S&M punishment is meted out to restaurant staff every day, in the form of "user-friendly" touchscreen terminals.
IIRC, the phenomenon is in the Jargon File under "Gorilla Arms"; it's given as a major reason why touchscreens never took off for any application where a given user spends more than three minutes a day with the device. It's fine for an ATM, but imagine operating an ATM for eight hours at a stretch... It'd be torture.
This is just another gyromouse story, isnt it?
You're supposed to have your hand on the other one. If you don't have that figured out by now, no wonder you're spending all your time on Slashdot...
Now repeat after me: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; this is for fighting, this is for fun."
Nothing new, the pointing devices based on the gyroscope principle are at least 1 year old, if not more. Last yaer I was researching the market for a long-range wireless mouse and I found at least 2 gyro-mouses, one was with integrated laser pointer. It is really useful for PowerPoint presentations or any other projector based demostrations
I installed a wireless gyroscopic mouse for an instructor in my university in 1996. This was in California, the mouse was a logitech.
I've got ya beat. I've had flying mice since I started playing Doom. ...of course the flights weren't all that long and they usually shattered upon impact.
Now that I think about it, I'd have to admit I've had a few flying keyboards too...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
my CS professor loves to use powerpoint presentations as lectures almost as much as he likes to walk around (presumably to keep us awake...?)
he recently purchased one of these mice and initially we were all impressed -- waving his arms through the air with pp slides flying by behind him; it was like magic. pure, hardcore geeky magic.
until the batteries died. then things got frustrating: the cursor, *when* it responded, skittered around the screen like a coked up mosquito, slides would click by at random. I presume he tired of banging the confounded thing against the wall (with no effect) since he eventually retired the bugger.
now we're back in the tech stone-age: actually CLICKING the mouse. oh, the humanity.
and she was born in a bottle-rocket 1929.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Comon, who here won't admit to sending at least a few of the poor bastards airborne to their ultimate demise during a night of Half-Life deathmatch?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
"You just keep your powerglove off her"
:D
Someone had to say it
Technoli
I was at a lab from 1991-94, at which we had one of those "Airmouse" wireless mice. We called it the "Airdog" because it performed so badly.... I presume the newest generation is better.
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
..but we've used one at work [AudioVideo company] for years now. It's called a GyroMouse, and can be put on a surface, to work like a normal mouse, or picked up to work as a wireless tilt thing.
Quite nifty, really.
1. Get a extension cord for your mouse 2. relax on sofa 3. Grap the mouse sidways with middle finger on bottom of the mouse resing on ball, with your thumb (and index if desired) over buttons. 4. Move ball with middle finger, and bush button with thumb. Voila! man go back to the basics!
I imagine there's more than one geek here who's using, or has tried to use, a PC as the core of their entertainment system. DVD player is good, but the CD jukebox is better. TV output isn't ideal on any PC (unless you have a newer LCD television), but dropping the resolution can help that.
The biggest problem is input, though. You don't need a keyboard unless you're entering new data, and a wireless keyboard can help with that. But a wireless mouse still requires a pad, and a trackball needs a flat surface on which to rest.
IR remote controls for PCs do exist, but they're slightly limited in what they can and can't control. Something like this wireless mouse, OTOH, can be used to control an entertainment PC just like a television remote, and could make it much easier for someone to make build a PC into a home entertainment system.
I for one would love to see someone like Sony use this to market a PC specifically for this purpose -- CD/DVD player (and burner, for an upgrade), MP3/WMA/OGG audio/video jukebox preinstalled, and a TV/video in/out card to make it all happen, together with a flat stereo-component-sized case and a wireless flying mouse and keyboard. 25" flat LCD television costs extra. Could be the next big thing.
The specifications of the device as it exists on the TX-2 are as follows:
.014 inch and a 13-bit counter will allow measurements of up to 9 feet. Allowing time for 11-foot reflections to die out, the transmitters can be pulsed at 10- millisecond intervals. Since four transducers are used, the total cycle takes about 40 milliseconds, providing an operating frequency of 25 cps. The hardware is currently arranged so that the computer is interrupted when a new count is completed, at which time it reads the counter value and the transmitter number (see Fig. 1). It is left to software to calculate the x, y, z coordinates from the four distances.
The major inherent advantage of the ultrasonic delay method of determining the position of a stylus is that the measurements are all delay measurements where a digital counter can provide a direct digital readout without requiring an analog to digital conversion. Sound is very convenient for measurement purposes since its propagation velocity is approximately one foot per millisecond. Thus, a 1-megacycle counting rate will resolve distance to
now we can use our own computers and look like idiots at the same time! yay!
My cousin had a really kick ass TV/Stereo Surround Sound system before everyone else did. His Sony TV used a gyroscopic mouse that was shaped like an egg. It did the exact same thing on his TV. Worked as a remote....and this was 6 years ago.
"Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you. Cry, and they still think its funny." - Mr. Boffo
moving your hand from the keyboard to the mouse is annoying enough. Who wants to move, pick up, use, put down, and move back? Aside from specialty apps, this is DOA.
I saw something like this around six years ago. It wasn't wireless at the time, but a few years later the company had a wireless one. It worked by using gyros when the mouse was picked up (you could use it as a standard mouse when it was down) and was descent for presentations.
Don't we have enough to worry about with all of the other airborne pathogens out there? There are airborne viruses, airborne bacteria, airborne allergens like pollen, dust, and pet dander. But now now airborne mice???
Of course, the mask I was thinking of buying to filter all of that airborne crap out of the air that I breathe will most certainly be able to filter out airborne mice.
So what I really need to know is this: Do these airborne mice move at high velocities? If they do, I'll need to put the filtering mask inside a hockey mask. But if I do that, I'll have to worry about getting attacked by horror movie buffs at work. It seems that with airborne mice, some bruising will be inevitable.
.sig wanted. Inquire within.
From the bottom of the article: "With a little experimentation, the reviewer found that he could easily control the cursor by moving his whole arm, or, with the mouse held in both hands, his whole torso." Wow! I'll have to try typing on the keyboard that way too!
IVS, a Canadian company has been selling a visualization package, Fledermaus, for over 10 years that includes a flying mouse called a bat. This package is aimed at hydrography and ocean exploration.
Maybe they were inspired by the numerous evidence of lusers using the mouse as a TV remote :
:)
http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_mice.shtml
now what's next is a "foot pedal" mouse and a CDROM drive which doubles as a coffee cup holder
The best technique is to move the cursor to where you want to go and then release the underside trigger button. The cursor freezes on screen, and you can then click or whatever.
I think this might make using 3 button emulation under X hard.
people complain about having to take their hands off the keyboard to use the mouse. it's not moving my hands that bothers me, it's having to glance over at the mouse, or fumble around for a second looking for it. i imagine, sitting next to my keyboard, a big half-dome -- maybe six or more inches across, and not quite a half-dome. it's big so you can find it no problem with your hand -- no fumbling. to control the cursor, you tug the thing up or down or left or right. it would be basically just like the little 'nub' cursor controllers on a lot of laptops, only friggin' huge.
to click, i'd probably want to tap right on the top of the thing (no button needed -- maybe a textured area). you can see that this would be different than a trackball -- much larger, and you wouldn't "roll" the thing around, merely tilt it or tug it or something.
furthermore, while we're (not) on the subject, where the hell is a Programmers' Keyboard? I'm looking for a keyboard without a row of numbers on the top -- that's what the numeric keypad is for (well, i dunno, maybe we could save the number row) -- and instead a row (probably two rows) of SYMBOL keys on them. why the hell do i have to hold down the shift key and find the "4" button to get a dollar sign? i hit that damn key a thousand times a day (perl)! way WAY more often than many of the alpha keys. and trying to touch-type right parens, underscores, and equals signs (all next to eachother up there) is difficult, too. i'm thinking two rows of additional keys, with parens, brackets, braces, ampersands and all the other shift- symbols, and so on. what the hell? there are MILLIONS of programmers out there; wouldn't they all want one of these?
note to electrical engineers: i need no royalties; a free NUBMouse and ProgKey Keyboard will do just fine. thanks.
This can't be comfortable! I just tried holding my arm up to point to certain things and it was not the most comfortable of positions.
I would envision for this to take off that they might need to reengineer desks to make it more friendly on the arm.
When touch screens first came out they were highly touted as a replacement for the keyboard...until people started using them. People's arms got tired too quickly from raising them off the desk all the time.
It seems to me that these mice will have a similar problem, and will probably find certain niches where they are appropriate, as touch screens did, but won't get much use elsewhere.
and in fact I remember back in 1993-1994 many MANY people using nintendo powergloves as mice for windows 3.11 Yeah, also a project that has been posted here before to do the same for Linux.
Produced in the 80's, a joystick which was freestanding, see picture.
not only is this product like 20 years old, but you already made this mistake once before...
;)
august slashdot article on same product
my guess is this is blatent product placement, and once again i encourage taco to spend the money on jubei
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Has anyone tried using this device in Quake-type games with any sucess? Something more precise than the current mouse would make the game a much more fun endavor for those of us struggling with a standard mouse.
We're almost there..
Hrrm... I usually just sign my name.
I already have one of these. It's called the GyroPoint, and was made by ixMicro. They've been out and around for years, as the version I have is the "GyroPoint Pro 2", and I've had it for better then 2 years. It's wireless (RF) and has worked in all kinds of situations. I purchased it with the intention of using it for presentations. It fills that role wonderfully well. Otherwise, it was difficult to use, and took a lot of concentration to keep pointed at the right thing.
The base station had two ports on it, a RJ-45 for the cable that connected to the computer, and a RJ-12 for connecting to the mouse, if you had no batteries or if in a very noisy enviroment. With a simple change of a cable, it was both Mac and Wintel compatible, had ADB and PS/2 cables. I have had several clients who've used it for presentations, and they all really liked it.
I never used it for more then 20 minutes (durring presentations), and could not imagine using it for gamming, it was just to hard to control movement with. Maybe I should have sold it to one of my clients...
looks like an electric shaver to me. ;)
I guess Corporate America now has a good reason to fire half of the IT department.
IT Guy: Hi this is trevor in IT, do you need any help?
worker_bee_2762366: nope.
IT Guy: i can come to your desk and clean you mouse balls.
worker_bee_2762366: stay away from me or I will call HR.
IT Guy: maybe you need some new AV updates.
worker_bee_2762366: after we switched to redhat, i dont get viruses anymore.
*silence*
IT Guy: *sigh*
When I was shopping for manila folders at Staples, I saw one of these babies in a cardboard presentation case. The prices were way too high, but in case you wanted to spend even more, you could get a tiny keyboard with it. The keyboard looked kinda nice, though...
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Ok, so it's not the newest idea around - but I wonder if they could ever come out with one that would strap your hand in some way. It'd be nice to have mouse control by moving my hand around without moving my fingers from the home positions of the keyboard. Of course typing fast would blow that idea out of the water. Still, I want some way that I can move my mouse around with out having to reach waaaaay over there to the side of my keyboard.
I've had one of these for years. The only thing new about this is that they are now using an optical sensor for when you use it on a surface.
One of my coworkers made a flying mouse.. It's still outside stuck in a tree.
Really.
I have the Gyromouse Pro, made by the same company - basically the older version of this. The recharging base is nice, but the problem is that you really need it! The mouse only lasts a couple of hours with continuous use, or about a day with sporadic use.
I bought this mouse for my HTPC (home theater pc) but after repeatedly forgetting to recharge it and then having no mouse control, I finally gave up on it and bought a Logitech cordless optical mouse/keyboard combo. What a difference! It has lasted months on the first set of batteries, and the optical mouse works on any surface, including my arm chair. My Gyromouse Pro has a ball for usage on a flat surface, and it doesn't work on furniture. (I realize that the mouse referenced by this story is optical, so YMMV)
The Gyromouse also has horrible accuracy. Trying to click on small buttons is difficult, but using delay-popup menus (such as Windows' Start menu) is almost impossible - very difficult to move the mouse in a straight line to the right, onto the newly popped menu. From the article, it sounds like this new version has the same problem. The reviewer states "The best technique is to move the cursor to where you want to go and then release the underside trigger button." In fact, with my mouse, this is practically the only technique that works - trying to double-click without releasing the trigger is impossible. Even trying to release the trigger while the cursor is positioned where you want is tricky, and often takes several tries. Forget about accurate drag and drop. Still, I might have been able to live with the low precision for HTPC usage; it was really the battery life that was a deal breaker for me.
I do have to give props to the Gyromouse for its cordless range. The article states 25 feet; mine works at least that far away. This is something the Logitech sadly cannot compare to. The Logitech is rated at 6 feet and that rating is fairly accurate. I had to use a USB extension cord to move the Logitech base closer to the couch so that it would get reception.
All in all, I would recommend the Gyromouse only for people who need to use it for powerpoint presentations or other applications where extended use or precise control are not required. I would definitely not recommend it for general desktop, office, or HTPC usage, primarily due to its terrible battery life.
-TomK
i dont know about you guys, but my usual computer posture involves a complete lack of muscular effort (both forearms on the table, jaw slack and unsupported, mouse controlled with fingers from the second joint only).
it seems that having to pick up the mouse and physicaly wave it around would spur my atrophied arm muscles into full revolt.
Where do I set it down to type?
Look for the new 'mouse holster' on thinkgeek.com soon.
TK
The Gyromouse is gyro based in the air, but put it on the desk and it reverts to being an optical mouse. It needs no external sensors to detect position and it also has, in the pro version, a 30M range... It is actually a very slick pointing device , and it feels really solid in your hand.
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
I have a gyroscopic mouse from ca. 2000 that acts similiarly, you can hold the mouse in the air and use it to move the cursor in the screen.. it also has a ball in it so it works doubly. it costed $120 from a local store in 2000 I believe.
Alternatively...
...is called 'Gorilla Arm'.
Why do you think general-purpose touch-screens didn't catch on? Holding your hand out in front of you for extended periods of time is painful and not at all ergonomical.
Your arm quickly feels heavy, hairy and painful. Thus 'gorilla arm'.
For presentations, okay. Highly specialized niches, okay. But ordinary work? No way.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Hey, I've had one of those for years! /me unplugs mouse, picks it up, and throws it across the room.
Now, I just need to find a lawyer to help me patent this thing...
okay, I have used these things a bunch. and they aren't exactly made for gameing. just to let everyone know. the best use for one i've seen is a teacher i know that has an lcd projector and gives presentations with one of these(think of it as an interactive laser pointer). when someone wants to use the computer without a flying mouse(bat) you just use it like a mouse. but if you are giving a presentation(or need a good workout) just pick it up and press a button(don't have to hold the button down, thats just silly) and walla, your mouse is a bat. amazing stuff, huh
Wouldn't it make your hand tired holding a mouse in the air for a while
The thing that made the gyro mouse superior to almost all more recent electro gyro scope mouse offerings was its egg shape and orientation of the gyroscope. You would hold it sideways in a more natural position and click a button ( now on the bottom ) that would cause the mouse respond. I've tried more recent options and they are less then adiquate for quake with the way you hold the mouse in the air.
Now I must admit that I've switched to an optical mouse for my quaking needs. The gyro is not good enough for RTSs even using it like a regular mouse( It had a ball built in). I would for a time shut down my computer and switch mice. After 98 came out and I picked up a USB optical mouse I tried to use both mice at the same time but 98 didn't like that very much and the reliability of the PS2 device woudl be spotty at best. I eventually gave up.
With the advent of quake3 and the need to be acurate in all these Realism based mods I had to give it up as I couldn't rail quite good enough to be at the level I wanted. Of course the 2 year hiatus I took from videogames and computers may have hurt my steady hand quite a bit.
Xistic
BASE Conflict for Quake 3
I've had one of the earlier models for a good 5 years now... damn good mouse but front page material?
All they've added is optics, but the ball is so good on these things that it doesn't matter.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/08/14/195523 8&tid=137
These things have been out for ages; since when does slashdot take their queues from CNN
Several hours of holding the mouse in the air...Sounds like excersize! ;)
Fuzdout
..My sig ran away. Has anyone seen my sig?
Sad but true friend.
Just stupid OT-ness, replying to your .sig:
Live dangerously: turn "Display Link Domains" off!
Isn't that the first thing EVERYONE does? I mean, come on, what the hell is the status bar of EVERY FRIGGIN BROWSER MADE for, if not to show the destination of links you hover over?
If you can't take a tiny bit of extra time to look where you're going, you deserve to see some goatse action.
± 29 dB
what i want is a low priced version of the device that tracks the 3d position of each of your fingers (maybe you have to wear caps on the tips of the ringers, or rings, or something like that).
I'm sure it'll have a few uses up front but the real uses will come when we start to experiement with it.
with that many degrees of freedom we could make typing much faster. what's more, we could develop entirely new ways to communicate with the command line, and perhaps ultimately faster ways to communicate with other humans.
[shrug] I guess it's not that funny, but it better than most of the FP you see.
This is nearly as good as my Thrustmaster Firestorm Wireless gamepad... except that the Firestorm has an extra four axes and nine buttons (or nineteen with shift-button mapping). Probably cheaper too, and I can't see myself playing GTA3 with just a mouse. ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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