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Microsoft Unveils A Designer Mouse
jeckil writes "Today Microsoft unveiled the new Starck mouse; a new shiny mouse designed to take the 'cool' from other mice such as Logitech or Apple. Microsoft is calling it the 'first museum-quality mouse.' Looks shiny enough to be on a museum display along with other succesful Microsoft products."
Looks like the url may not let me link directly to the picture.
Ad with pic
Direct link to Microsoft site pic
Just plug the Mac stuff into your PC. The USB keyboards and mice work just fine (at least they have for me). I use an iMac keyboard on my work PC since my desk there is very small and I wanted a small but functional keyboard. XP recognized it without any trouble.
Mouse and keyboard cords are good. Until they can come up with a cordless mouse that gets its power wirelessly instead of needing a stupid recharging station or batteries, I'm not going there. There's nothing more annoying than your mouse running out of power. Sure, it may not happen often, but it generally does so at the most annoying times.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
IBM has a prototype of a mouse with trackpoint scroll stick. Because the trackpoint nubbin is a rate-device, like a joystick, it apparently offers superior productivity to a scrollwheel according to IBM's research (PDF of slides).
Has anyone seen any devices like this? As much as I love the scrollwheel, my finger gets tired scrolling through a long document -- I'd rather just pull on a stick/nubbin and zoom along.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
So while it wasn't as advanced as optical mice today, it's still an example of pre-microsoft optical mouse technology.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
Sun had optical mice in 1993.
Sure, it may not happen often, but it generally does so at the most annoying times.
Actually, it happens never.
On this MX700, the charging station is also the cordless transmitter. Simply remembering to put the mouse on the charger when you leave the system is all it takes.
If you forget, it's no big deal. The mouse lasts quite a while without a charge. When the batteries start to run down there is a flashing red LED on the top of the mouse and it will flash for quite a while before the mouse actually starts to become unusable.
So if you can't remember to actually put the mouse up most of the time then the flashing red LED should remind you when you absolutely have to.
Unlike my previous cordless mice, I've never had this one die on me which is why I like it so much. With the previous mice I really didn't have the mouse die on me very often but it did happen. I kept 4 NiMH batteries rotated out on a charger and swapped them frequently. Only when I would forget to change them (about once per week) would I start to notice the mouse become choppy and THAT was an immediate reminder to swap them and charge the set I was using.
Oh, and the MX700 uses two NiHM batteries as well (they are included.)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I did clean it. It stayed broken.
Is that the optical Intellimouse without the collar around where the cable enters the body of the mouse ? If so, you had the USB cable frayed. Microsoft *will* replace the mosue for free - including shipping - because it's a manufacturing defect. Actually, it's a design defect. Note that every other mouse in the world has some sort of collar around the cable where it enters the mouse. This one doesn't. If memory serves, it's actually HP's mistake, they make the Intellimouse for Microsoft.
If that isn't our mouse, then you have another problem.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Unlike the Apple Mouse, the whole left and right side's are buttons. A friend of mine tried one out and he constantly complained that because he rests his hand on his mouse, he mistakingly clicked all over the place. The Apple Mouse, although it has only one button, is only pressure sensitive at the top.
The newer Logitech models (link, link) that have this problem pretty well handled (I use the second one listed), however, at the expense of battery life (not a big deal with these models, as they include NiMH batteries and a recharging cradle). Once you get used to cordless mice, dealing with a mouse cord is extremely obnoxious.
More on-topic, these "Museum-Kwality" mice look fugly.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Have you seen this one?
USB mice only sample at 125hz. If you want real precision you go PS/2 and run at 200hz.
MOMA bought a Macintosh Cube and other Macintosh items for their permanent art collection. The Cube came with a Macintosh mouse but MOMA bought some additional Macintosh mice to display separate from the complete Cube.
A buddy of mine had to go back to using his umbilical cord mouse after getting the MX700 because of short battery life issues.
It looks pretty on the desk, but doesn't really do anything. Kind of like a model hired for ComDex.
Nice post, but your assertions about the MX510 are simply wrong.
MX mice (using the mouseware drivers or the applet under linux) operate at 800dpi, rather than the 400dpi of most other mice (including the entire MS range).
Previous MX series mice had a problem, however: 800dpi, at 125hz with 8bit packets (usb), could generate more movement data that the mouse could send to the host. Thus the sensation of 'negative acceleration' that would be found.
Under linux, it has always been possible to operate the usb mice at 500hz, removing this problom. Under windows however, these was no solution.
The MX510 fixed this by sending 12 bit data packets at 125hz, removing the negative acceleration when moving the mouse quickly, which felt a lot like lag.
In short: The MX series do genuinely operate at a higher resolution than most other mice, and the 510 does fix the problems that this higher resolution made.
On the topic of the MX700, while I can't comment about battery life, it was the first wireless mouse that talked to the computer at faster than 60hz, which is why none of the previous ones, from both logitech and ms, were usable for serious gaming.
...was the original Logitech MouseMan+, with the rubber on the sides and the buttons that extended to the edge of the mouse. Looked weird (ugly, even), but it's "the" mouse for (right-handed) people with big hands.
Then they completely screwed it up when they made the optical model, by reducing the size of the buttons (original on the right, optical models on the left and centre).
Currently, the best compromise is probably the "MX" series, also from Logitech (a company I don't like much, but they do manage to get it right now and then), especially the MX-500 and above. The main buttons are very well designed, and the side buttons are reasonable. The scroll wheel and the other buttons are too far back on the mouse, though; to reach them you have to either bend your fingers or move your hand back so it actually rests off the mouse.
And, of course, Logitech's mouse drivers are crap (can't even turn acceleration off completely). Stick to the default OS drivers and you'll be fine.
My wrists have been destroyed by bad keyboards and worse mice. That mouse looks cool, but my wrists start to ache just looking at it.
I want a mouse that is comfortable to use for long periods of time. I need one that has a good 15-30 degree slant up towards the left, like the Goldtouch Mouse. Sure, it's ugly, but I can still hold a beer after a long day of computer use.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
A clever way to imply that Microsoft innovates, but history says otherwise. Englebart invented the mouse in the late 1960's, and Xerox PARC used it first almost-commercially in the 1970's. Apple produced their first mouse based system, the Lisa in 1982 which was the first real use of the mouse as an input peripheral by any commercially available system. Microsoft's mouse was then, as they are now, developed and manufactured by somebody else, but marked by Microsoft. Also, the Microsoft mice of that era were almost completely functionally unusable, where Apple's mouse worked well because it had to.
-- Len
For history of mice in general (including optical) go here. Microsoft is not even close to being innovative in this regard.
.. this is pre-historic news. I've had this mouse for a month!
. and yeah, it looks great next to my Mac but is really plastic and it feels really cheap to use.
-- http://z80.org - all opinions, all the time --