Microsoft Releases Batch of Windows 8 Input Devices

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Microsoft Releases Batch of Windows 8 Input Devices

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 31, 2012 @03:39AM from the mouse-doubles-as-doorstop dept.

jones_supa writes "To accompany Windows 8, Microsoft has released some interesting keyboard and mouse devices, all of which are wireless and use Bluetooth. The Wedge Touch Mouse is an artful product shaped as an angular wedge, being compact enough for travel too. Wedge Mobile Keyboard follows the style of laptop keyboards and includes a snap-on cover. Sculpt Touch Mouse is more like a classic mouse, but features a four-way touch-scroll strip. Finally, we have Sculpt Mobile Keyboard, which is a lighter version of a classic curved keyboard. All four are on the expensive side, but at first blush seem high-quality."

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why no wires? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 03:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

wireless needs batteries and can be issues in a big office full of them.
1. Re:why no wires? by Kenja · 2012-07-31 03:49 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  wireless needs batteries and can be issues in a big office full of them.
  Not to worry, no one in a big office will be using Windows 8.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
2. Re:why no wires? by Grave · 2012-07-31 03:53 · Score: 2
  
  If done right, a pair of AA batteries will last in a wireless keyboard/mouse for nearly a year, so it's not as dramatic an issue as you might think. I still can't see many offices using these by default, but no doubt consumers will like them.
3. Re:why no wires? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 04:01 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Not in bluetooth devices.
  I've had and used a microsoft wireless mouse with bluetooth, I had to change the batteries every 3 weeks. After a few months, I got rid of it, because the upkeep was simply too high.
  Release a version that runs on diesel, and then I might consider it.
4. Re:why no wires? by somersault · 2012-07-31 04:01 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Logitech also do a nice solar powered keyboard. My desk doesn't get any direct sunlight, and often I leave the lights off, but it always has plenty of charge. The batteries will apparently last 3 months even in complete darkness.
  Now somebody needs to make some decent solar powered trackballs or trackpads and I'll be cable and battery free :)
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
5. Re:why no wires? by Darinbob · 2012-07-31 07:10 · Score: 2
  
  But still you have a battery... Wired just works, no toxic products to dispose of safely.
Wedge (Puck) Mouse by wazzzup · 2012-07-31 03:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

It looks like Microsoft is taking a page from Apple and emphasizing design now - along with the warts that go with it. I've never used the wedge mouse but instinct tells me that using one will invoke carpal tunnel induced rage like Apple's Bondi iMac puck mouse and clit-scroll Mighty Mouse.
1. Re:Wedge (Puck) Mouse by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 04:04 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Indeed, ever since the GUI. The popular saying goes, "Microsoft's R&D lab is... Apple."
2. Re:Wedge (Puck) Mouse by Jaysyn · 2012-07-31 04:27 · Score: 2
  
  Which is sad, because Microsoft had made the best mice in recent years.
  Compared to who?
  
  --
  There is a war going on for your mind.
3. Re:Wedge (Puck) Mouse by SolitaryMan · 2012-07-31 04:40 · Score: 2
  
  Microsoft was always good at input devices. Microsoft Natural keyboard is the one I instantly fell in love with and use it ever since. I also have some trackball from them. Don't remember the model and won't bother to look for the picture, but it is very comfortable.
  Apple's keyboard only looks nice. Pretty crappy when you actually try to use it (when compared to MS's).
  
  --
  May Peace Prevail On Earth
4. Re:Wedge (Puck) Mouse by Gadget_Guy · 2012-07-31 04:41 · Score: 2
  
  Go do an image search for Microsoft Mouse and tell us that they are only just started thinking about design now.
  Go on, keep scrolling the images. It is actually kind of hypnotic seeing all the shapes and colours scrolling by. It would be super freaky to do this if you were high on drugs!
5. Re:Wedge (Puck) Mouse by tlhIngan · 2012-07-31 04:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It looks like Microsoft is taking a page from Apple and emphasizing design now - along with the warts that go with it. I've never used the wedge mouse but instinct tells me that using one will invoke carpal tunnel induced rage like Apple's Bondi iMac puck mouse and clit-scroll Mighty Mouse.
  Generally speaking, Apple mice are among the worst, and always have been since the original Mac. Mice, though. Their trackballs tended to be quite nice at least on the powerbooks way back when). Their touchpads have gotten way better in the last few years (acreage... I don't understand where PC manufacturers get their awful smaller-than-the-original-ipod-screen touchpads from that you can barely fit your finger on).
  But Apple mice? Generally crap.
Re:First by Tubal-Cain · 2012-07-31 03:50 · Score: 5, Informative

No, no, no. This was first.
I don't get it. by Guano_Jim · 2012-07-31 03:51 · Score: 2

From TFA:

I wouldn't use the Wedge Touch Mouse for extended, serious work because of its small size, but it seemed to work well for basic tablet navigation.
Isn't one of the selling points of a tablet that one doesn't need to use a mouse with it? Who is this targeting?

--
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1. Re:I don't get it. by Mia'cova · 2012-07-31 04:02 · Score: 2
  
  Mobile users who don't need to use a mouse for extended periods of time. But if you wanted to pick one golden scenario, it would be 'perfect' for on-the-go users of office on a win8 tablet, which is still mostly a desktop-based experience.
2. Re:I don't get it. by CohibaVancouver · 2012-07-31 04:25 · Score: 2
  
  Who is this targeting?
  People like me - I travel regularly for business. At airports and on planes I would use the device in tablet-style. When I get to my hotel room, I'd set the device up on my desk and use it with a mouse and keyboard.
3. Re:I don't get it. by tsa · 2012-07-31 04:42 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  So basically you need a laptop.
  
  --
  -- Cheers!
4. Re:I don't get it. by KevReedUK · 2012-07-31 09:22 · Score: 2
  
  That is SOME laptop, to have a six foot 3 inch screen... just how big is your lap?!?
  
  --
  Just my $0.03 (At current exchange rates, my £0.02 is worth more than your $0.02)
Re:Does anyone use these tiny mouses? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 03:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Tiny cats.
Microsoft make good hardware by Simon+Brooke · 2012-07-31 03:56 · Score: 3, Informative

Microsoft should reinvent themselves as a hardware house. A lot of their hardware is very good; I've never regretted any of the Microsoft mice I've bought.
It's a shame their software is (generally) so rubbish.

--
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
1. Re:Microsoft make good hardware by ArcherB · 2012-07-31 04:31 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I'll take Logitech over MS any day of the week, especially considering the differences in warranty policies. Heck, even Logitech pays both ways for shipping. That is if they even want the product back at all for warranty.
  I can't speak for Logitech's warranty policies, but I've had to deal with MS once. I had one of the first laser mice (ball less?) that broke on me. I remember it came with a 5-year warranty. I called MS's support and the girl asked me when I purchased the mouse. I told her I wasn't sure, but it came with a 5 yr warranty and that type of mouse had not existed for 5 years. She laughed, took my address and sent me a brand new mouse. No questions asked. No sending my old mouse back. No receipt. No registration (who registers a mouse?). Nothing. Just here's your mouse. Thanks for playing... Love Microsoft.
  
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  There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
At the mercy of the designer and the consumer. by pointyhat · 2012-07-31 04:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

We appear to be entering the age where we are the mercy of the designer and the consumer.
Every "innovation" is now in the design space and is simply about establishing a brand and adding a layer of turd polish rather than solving problems or increasing efficiency.
Look at Metro, look at Windows Phone, look at these input devices, look at everything Apple has done for the last 10 years, look at everything.
It still takes us 3 months to knock out a simple bit of software, stuff still needs endless updates, problems haven't got any simpler to solve, nothing connects or works with other things properly without arguing with endless layers of configuration. Computing has become the activity, not the saviour of our time which is supposed to deliver us from mind numbing repetitiveness. We've gone nowhere.
Real technical innovation is dead. RIP.
1. Re:At the mercy of the designer and the consumer. by JBMcB · 2012-07-31 04:43 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It still takes us 3 months to knock out a simple bit of software, stuff still needs endless updates, problems haven't got any simpler to solve, nothing connects or works with other things properly without arguing with endless layers of configuration. Computing has become the activity, not the saviour of our time which is supposed to deliver us from mind numbing repetitiveness.
  You clearly weren't alive in the 70's or 80's, when nothing talked to anything else and nothing was easy. It would be an amazing feat to get a database to import data from a spreadsheet on the same machine. CSV was the best you could hope for, and you'd loose all your metadata. And networking two different machines together? Good luck with that. Maybe with a serial cable and some Kermit scripts, you *might* get text files to transfer if you were lucky. Unless you had a few thousand dollars for a nice DECNet or Banyan system, of course. Want wireless data access? RTTY baby! A few suitcases full of equipment and batteries and you could open a Mainframe session at 50 baud.
  Now, two people can be nearly anywhere in the world and send any type of data they want to each other instantaneously using devices that fit in their shirt pocket, for the price of a few bucks a day.
  As Louis CK once said, everything is amazing and nobody is happy.
  
  --
  My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
2. Re:At the mercy of the designer and the consumer. by pointyhat · 2012-07-31 09:04 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The social and entertainment wankfest works, if it makes someone an advertising buck. The moment you're no longer earning for them, you're tossed on the street.
  When it comes down to doing important things, it's a fucking disaster.
  Config.sys? Yeah I remember that, setting IRQ7 and port 220h for my SoundBlaster AWE32. Hard times eh? Well compare that to trying to get VMWare ESX 4 talking to a SAN so I can persuade it that the LUN has more than 2Tb of capacity. Esp when your kit costs £0.5m a whack. Nope doesn't do it, so we have to fuck around and do volume spanning to get our desired 42Tb array (for storing real shit like financial documents and medical data, not pissy videos of your kids falling off shit and facebook wanking).
  Autoexec.bat? Yeah I remember that, loading in my TSRs. Hard times eh? Well compare that to working out why the fuck an MS hotfix broke our entire .Net stack by setting cache expiry wrong, causing a problem with a certain version of IE8 which happened to be deployed to 20,000 of our client machines...
  Haven't opened your PC since you bought it. We have 20x 48 Core Xeon boxes which needed assembly and arrive on pallets. That and 1540 workstations and laptops which need to be secured. We have 10-20 workstations cycled per week due to failures and users fucking them up.
  I'm not doing it wrong - you're not doing enough to gain experience of how shitty it is. You are a consumer. You are the people who they bother to fix stuff for and the point of my email above. Unfortunately, what we do (the non consumerists), makes the world go round. Noone would blink an eye if half of the tech you mentioned above disappeared overnight.
Gahh! by onyxruby · 2012-07-31 04:07 · Score: 2

Keyboards and mice are one thing Microsoft has always done right, what happened? Even in their darkest days, I could get even the most zealous of Linux diehard users to admit that they made some of the best mice and keyboards around. This is especially important when you want ergonomic products to avoid injuring your wrists! Apple made the puck and microsoft makes the wedge. Google, please don't make the square, if you do I will mock you forever, ok?
Look, copying Apple with a design over function is not always a good thing ok? Simple isn't always better, sometimes functional and usable really is more important ok? Grr
/arrow keys in the Android keyboard - where did they go? My list of examples could go on and on. People need to quit assuming that apple does things better just because their apple and do their own thing. dammit.
1. Re:Gahh! by CAIMLAS · 2012-07-31 04:53 · Score: 2
  
  Apple is the new Microsoft and Microsoft is the new Apple.
  Apple is making money hand over fist, quarter after quarter. They have the 'desirable' products which everyone wants and clamors for, and nobody really seems to care that the 'added functionality' of the new products is mostly glam shoved on top of poop, with no concrete improvements or functionality: it's mostly just window dressing. Welcome to Microsoft, circa mid- to late 1990s.
  Microsoft is languishing and slowly losing market share to their competitors. They can't focus. Their products are stuck in a slow, grinding revision process with everything good and/or desirable about their products being phased out for the Big New. They've started to stagnate, and people see their products as commodity - you have them because you need them, not necessarily because they're superior or desirable. All of their changes are seen as regressions by the loyal and technically savvy. Welcome to Apple, late 1990s.
  In terms of input devices, we're at a point where gaming consoles threaten general purpose computers for "better, more complex input devices". How fucked is that?
  
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Re:Does anyone use these tiny mouses? by UnknowingFool · 2012-07-31 04:23 · Score: 2

even though I have small hands myself.
Not something I would admit to, there buddy. :)

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