Slashdot Mirror
Your Next Pointer Device?
Anonymous Coward writes "Replacements for the rodent on your desktop are regularly being introduced. Here's yet another pointing device for you. A pen connected via radio to your PC. Movement is tracked by measuring the rolling of a small ball at the tip of the pen. This means it works on any surface. Take a look here.
No Linux drivers yet, and I'll wait for the USB version. But I like the idea of a pen."
I've used pen devices. Granted, they were tethered, but the same problem applies: It's a pain in the ass to keep putting down and picking up a pen. Impractical for those of us that switch back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse frequently.
I don't know about anybody else, but I am ALWAYS misplacing my pens. :-)
:-)
And if I write for a long time, I get cramps in my hand which are just as painful to me as RSI. I think I'll stick with my Logitech Trackman Marble Wheel. Since I got that here at work my wrists haven't bothered me one bit (except for when I fell on one, but I don't think I can blame that on the trackball).
Real Purty, though.
-- I'm omnipotent, I just don't care.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Mac graphic artists have been using pens for years with their graphic tablets; I assumed these could be used as mouses as well.
If I use anything other than a mouse, it's going to be a Twiddler. Which is cooler than any mere pen, except possibly one that blows up when you click it three times.
I think the mouse is probably the best general purpose pointing tool. It's a simple device you can flop your hand on and shove around, and for general pointering (not a word, I made it up) its accurate enough. What this pen would be nice for is for artists and the like. People who do online comics is the first idea that comes to mind. Holding a pen isn't a relaxed enough motion for me to ever use it for general pointering. (there it goes again)
:)
Different tools for different tasks I guess.
Regardless, I want one.
kaniff -- Ralph Hart Jr
Well, my nifty new radio pen rolled off my slanted ergonomic desk (it didn't alert the computer to that fact by radio) and I rolled over its nice ergonomic surface with my ergonomic chair... erg!
I lose pens unless I put them in my pen cup (an inconvenient place for a pointing device.) But my mouse always peeks out from beneath the junk piles on my desk, and its strung up by the tail to prevent it from straying too far.
Yuk...for general pointing use a pen would be awefully. The reason your hand gets cramped when you write a lot is because it is not normal to scrunch it up into the awkward position require to hold a pen. The mere awkwardness of having to /hold/ something to point would be annoying. A mouse just sits there...if I want to move it I move it. I don't haven to pick it up and then put it on some surface to make contact. A cylander is just too awkard to use except for activities that require micro-motor skills (writing). A pen is no good for macro-motor activities.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
IF you like this idea, try this :
= 21596955211819&cd=OU202
http://www.computergate.com/cgi-bin/prodinfo?sn
at only $18 and has DB9 connector, works for linux.
Anyone know how to convert PC keyboards/mice for sun boxes???
I use a Wacom PenPartner 4x5 tablet-and-cordless-pen myself, and it is MUCH better than using a mouse.
I don't see that this pen would be an improvement over a conventional pen and tablet. If anything, I see these disadvantages:
1. Since there is no tablet, this pen works in "Relative" mode only, like a mouse. So you have to keep picking up the pen and bringing it back to center to move a large distance. It's just as annoying as a mouse that way.
2. The pens you use with most tablets do not actually touch the surface of the tablet unless you are left-clicking. With this you have to keep the ball rolling, so there's more friction (minute, but still there). Plus, clicking seems more like it would just be "pressing harder than you are now", which doesn't lend itself to great accuracy.
It's a neat idea, but I'll keep my PenPartner.
(Now if only there was support for it in gpm...)
As a sometimes graphic-artist (read: I doodle on PS in my spare time), I think this is a kickass innovation. The mouse, as a drawing tool, frankly, sucks ass. I can render a human figure in perhaps three minutes with a pen, but with a mouse it takes endless hours of correction to get it right. Forget about subtle things like shading/cross-hatching or anything remotely artistically complex. Mice STINK for drawing.
Also lightpens are just as irritating, because if you don't maintain contact with the surface properly, you're screwed. I'd like to see something that's easy to control the motion of, like a pen. For most of you, precise control isn't that important - just gotta center the mouse on the button/url/whatever and click. If you want to draw a nice curve, though, mice are horrid and disgusting. I, for one, will buy this pen ASAP.
SA
Ya know how your hand hurts from clenching a mouse too much? Think how it will be to hold a pen all day.
Touch screen would be a lot better. I don't know why they aren't more popular. You could use your finger for most things, like menus, resizing, moving windows. You would probably need a little pointer gizmo on a ring on the end of your finger for cut and paste, but it would be so easy to use, you'd forget you had it on.
--
Infuriate left and right
Personally, I prefer my keyboard with the Touchpoint mouse in the middle. I don't have to use the large arm muscles to wave around a mouse or pen, and I don't have to move my hand away from the keyboard. The next best thing might be the foot-operated mice which have appeared on the market a few times...
Neat idea, but not really useful enough imho to become a Big Thing (tm). The big obstacle to more effective computing right now (especially in the light of the portable/handheld 'revolution' going on right now) is human interface. We should be looking for faster, more efficient ways to interface with our computers, if you think RAM is a bottleneck, think about physical interface :)
What would not long ago have been considered high-end 3d technology (hardware in particular) is becoming more and more accessable for the home user. If I can play a high-demand game like quake2 in beautifully textured 3d space (complete with colored lighting, etc.) why can't my desktop and general interface with my 'puter look like that? The answer (again, imho) is the lack of a proper 3d interface device.
The mouse only describes motion in a single plane. Until we can use something more intuitive for 3d interface, such as a cyberpunk-ish data glove, we will have to wait for more effective and intuitive interface (and i [think/hope?] we'd all agree that humans more intuitively deal with 3d space).
Every time I read about someone trying to put together a 3d front-end for X, I look at the screenshots and what their goal is and think to myself "Wow, these guys are missing the point completely." A 2d window manager in 3d space is exactly what we *don't* need. There are larger issues under the surface here 'though, such as how we redefine interaction with the computer for 3 dimensions.
That will have to wait for a device to do it with...
Anthony
^X^X
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
Because supporting the weight of your arm for hours at a time, day after day, also causes problem. First you get very sore and cramped. If you manage to keep it up for weeks at a time you overdevelop a couple muscles in the arm - and end up unbalanced WRT the other arm.
It's called "gorilla arm".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It came out about a few months ago for $100 US ($75-$90 street price). It's a consumer-level product, not for hardcore GIMP, Photoshop or Painter users like the Intuos, which means it costs less and has less (a mere 1015 DPI) tablet resolution. The Wacom XInput page says it's supported, but I don't have one (yet) to test it. Check it out.
This may be useful to some people...
:( )
:)
But not me, I fear.
I have used mice. Trackballs, touchpads, touch screens, and a joystick once or twice. I have navigated with the keyboard and with voice controls.
All this crap, just because using a mouse is like pointing with a potato.
You know what? I still use the mouse. It is universal, so I don't feel wierd when I go to someone else's desk. (I have one luser who insists on using a touchpad on his desktop PC
I hate to admit I like the mouse, but it is so useful in a basic sense that I would dread using anything else.
It does look cool, though. And would almost be worth it for the shock value.
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
As others said already, the idea of a pen-shaped pointer device isn't exactly new. This particular device seems to be different because a) it is wireless and b) uses an extremely small ballpoint.
However, this pen has a big disadvantage like its predecessor - you have to pick it up, hold it and later lay it down while you use it. For people who touchtype, this is a very repetive (and thus over time more and more uncomfortable) task.
A mouse or trackball does not require that you really have to pick something up, you just grab and move it. It's a tiny, yet important difference...
Anyway, I am not sure if the current idea of a "modern ui", the user interface based on the movement of a pointer device that is used to navigate windows, pull-down menus etc., is *such* a great idea.
Most computer-illiterate people still have problems to understand the metaphore and very complex software actually makes the use of a pointer device even less impractical than the proponents of the idea claim - don't say you've never spent minutes of idly clicking and searching through multiple levels of pull-down-menus?
I am still hoping for a user interface that is completely different. Speech processing is good enough now and modern processors can handle it. When will there be the first true window-less, speech driven user interface? I can't wait to see it.
"Computer: tea, earl grey, hot."
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
I believe it was Ted Nelson that said something like, "Thousands of years ago, our ancestors discovered that it was much easier to draw with sticks than with rocks. The stick prevailed until just recently, when we inexplicably began to draw with rocks again." (bad paraphrase, I'm sure)
He has a point. Sticks are easier, and allow you to input non-trivial things. Try feeding a handwriting recognition program or drawing a picture with a mouse.
Pens can replace mice, but not vice versa. User interfaces that take advantage of this can be very powerful, but then the best user interface for things like browsing (where the chief function is selection of a specific area) is the touchscreen, which outside the PDA world has hardly taken off at all.
I don't think it's going too far to say that it's the touchscreen feature of PDA's that makes them so darn easy, quick, and useful, and is largely responsible for thier success. Given that touchscreens and browsers work so well together, why don't we see the combination more often? (This raises interesting points for UI designers, who, whether they intend to or not, may wind up with something that looks very much like the heirarchical swooshes of the screens on Star Trek.)
Since it's likely that there will be mutiple kinds of input devices in the future (I think touchscreens to augment mice are more likely than sticks, but I like sticks better than mice), UIs will have to take this into account.
Other than the possible integration of character recognition, and the ability to more effectively use the display resolution (touchscreens have a notable weakness in that regard), what changes in UI would result from the widespread availability of sticks?
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
This is cool but i Need a tablet to go with (or without) it. Any suggestions? I want to run Linux on a Tablet or wearable, but it needs to have a reasonable display (prefer touch screen...). Networking will be teathered. Industrial applicaton... Thanks for any suggestions.
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Try selecting a currency first (top left select list) to see prices. If I recall it's about US$70
Our friends at Microsoft came up with one of those not too long ago. An "improved" optical mouse actually - since it does not require a special mouse pad/tablet unlike the competition.
No idea about Linux usuability but in theory it should work since it's a PS2 mouse.
It takes a few days to get used to it, but once you are, it's a really efficient way to move the mouse pointer around.
I think a lot of people don't like the Trackpoint because they tried the knockoffs by Toshiba and HP; their "eraserhead" pointing devices don't work anywhere near as well as the IBM one. The trick to making those kinds of pointing devices work comfortably is in getting the mapping from force to pointer movement just right, and IBM did many years of user research and performance testing to improve that (even between IBM's different trackpoint models, there are noticeable differences: Trackpoint 4 is quite a bit more efficient than the older models).
You can get several desktop versions of the Trackpoint keyboard from IBM. I bought Trackpoint 4 keyboards in "Stealth Black" for all my machines.
I did a little work with touchscreens for some kiosk development a few years ago. Touch screens are really cool -- for a few minutes. You don't want to hold your arm straight out in front of you for any significant length of time. I will agree that sticks are better than rocks for drawing. And when I'm drawing, I do prefer to use my graphics tablet. However, most of the things that I do with my pointing device aren't very much like drawing. I pick things up. I put them down somewhere else. I slide things around. For these actions, I'm more comfortable handling a rock than a stick. Rocks are, as someone else said in another thread, better for switching back and forth with a keyboard; I'd rather grab a rock that's right where I left it than pick up my stick again every couple of minutes. I'd rather tap a button with my finger (even after moving the image of my hand around for a second) than with the end of a stick. And I like the little wheel on my rock; I don't know where you could comfortably and safely place such a control on a stick. Also, button placement on a stick seems much more personal, depending more on hand size, on a stick than on a rock. Maybe the stick and touchscreen interfaces would work a little better for a horizontal display/input surface than our current vertical ones as a sole interface. The desktop-style panels on Trek don't look to bad, but just thinking about the wall-mounts make my shoulder ache. I have never been as comfortable writing on a wallboard as a desktop. Besides, even as the last of the hunt-and-peck programmers, I am more comfortable with a keyboard than with a pen for long stretches of text, and I want tactile feedback from my keyboard while I'm at it. I'd love to see a keyboard that integrates well with a horizontal LCARS panel, but can't imagine a layout where one wouldn't get in the way of the other.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
So, does this pen support variable pressure sensitivity? Doesn't look like it. For most operations, I prefer a mouse, but I do like my Wacom tablet for graphics applications, especially those that support variable-pressure input. In fact, I'd hate to try using a natural-media paint program without a pressure-sensitive device.
Slightly off-topic, but: How much support is there for variable-pressure devices in the Gimp? All my graphics experience has been in Windows (I know -- boo, hiss -- get over it), but I'm starting to take an interest in the Gimp as well. For that matter, does the Gimp (or any other Linux graphics software) have any type of natural-media functionality?
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
I use a trackball myself, ITAC (who I think has gone to pot) and Kensington. I like the big trackballs as opposed to those dinky Logitech ones.
:-)
I hadn't thought about holding my arm up so much. I mostly move the arrow into an xterm and leave it there for a while, sometimes click while testing web pages. But I agree now that I think of it. Thanks for the feedback
--
Infuriate left and right
On wheel mice, pressing the wheel down is the same as pressing the middle button. However, I don't know whether the tracking works under Linux just as it does in Windows.
For more information, click here.
Testify, brother!
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I'm always looking for my 'next' new computer toy, and this of course includes pointing devices.
;-)
:-)
But...
IMHO the mouse is the best pointing device currently available. As a general PC user I like the design for its simplicity and fuctionality. As a gamer, the mouse offers the perfect mix of control and sensitivity. I can't even *imagine* trying to play Q3A with a trackball. Seriously, as much beef as I have with Microsoft, that IntelliMouse is wonderful. I've become very attatched to the little scroll wheel! (Which is also a third button.) If only they'd stick to selling hardware, huh?
A short while ago I tested out a few trackballs, but I have yet to find a satisfactory product. Also, since I'm bad and constantly have munchies with me at the computer, the trackball would dirty *very* quickly from potato-chip oils, pizza grease, et cetera.
I would love to see more laptop manufacturers use trackballs, though. Though they're incomparable to mice, I *really* can't stand those kludgy touch-pads and eraser heads.
I would be very interested in hearing others' trackball comments.
For my uses, pen-type devices, while cool for artists, are too specialized.
What will the next technology be? I've heard of a Japanese company that is developing a device that follows eye movement for use in military applications (target designation for fighter pilots, working with the helmet visor and HUD). This way the pilot doesn't have to take his eyes of the sky to fiddle with the controls currently used for this purpose, and allows for extremely quick changes.
Could that be scaled for use as a PC pointing device? (Just look where you want on the screen, and the cursor goes there.)
For now, though, Mickey works fine.
--
I like to watch.
I have been using a Wacom ArtPad (supported quite nicely in XFree86) for over a year now. The best thing about a pen tablet is that it is not a mouse -- you can jump to any point on the screen in the time it takes to shift your hand. Though it took a while to get used to the buttons on the pen (and they still kinda annoy me), it has made working at the computer much more comfortable (not to mention, it has increased my Starcraft dexterity exponentially -- i can repair 12 bunched wraithes with no missed clicks. Though it kinda blows for quake...)
To me, this new pen combines all the disadvantages of a mouse and a pen into one. The worst thing about mice is the mouse ball by far -- it always gets dirty, it requires you to use the same amount of force constantly. Like all pens, it has those annoying buttons.
If you use a Wacom tablet, the serial port connects to the tablet -- not the pen. All that fancy radio hardwire, besides sounding like a frustration in the wings (interference = no mouse!), really doesn't offer you anything that different from what already exists.
Drivers exist because Wacom has done the sensible thing by sponsoring the XFree86 Project. Plus, WACOM is a respected manufacturer that is more or less the standard for graphic designers worldwide.
I doubt the cable from the tablet to the serial port will really bother you that much. Of course, if it does, check out the graphire. And if you want something to really make you drool, check out this.
I hate to say Microsoft made a good product, but I just got an IntelliEye mouse a few hours ago, and it blows the pants off every mouse I've ever used.
Its a shame someone else didn't make it, but if you're really looking for a great pointing device, these are about as nice as they get. You never realize how much friction you get from that ball until its gone.
First of all, a completely speech-based interface has its own problems, even if the speech recognition could be "perfect" and the interface extremely well-designed. That last part is probably harder than you think: for it to be a really good interface, you'd probably want it to "understand" you as clearly as another person would, which, even leaving out philosophical questions about whether it would really be conscious, is an AI-complete/Turing-Test sort of task.
A less ambitious version might be a speech-to-text layer built over a command line, but that would be really bad. It would not be much faster than typing, and it would be very hard to disambiguate your commands, since shell commands do not consist entirely of real words. For example, I for one pronounce "/usr/bin" as "user bin", not "slash U S R slash bin", but how is it supposed to know that? It can't just replace "usr" with "user", because I could also have a directory called "user", and that's just one word -- how is it supposed to be able to guess where to insert slashes, etc.? A lot of letters sound like words; multiple words can be separate tokens or run together, capitalization is nto always consistent, etc. I would certainly not be willing to spell everything out clearly enough for a reasonable system to recognize, because it would probably end up being slower than typing. If I ever need to work faster, I'll learn to touch-type [1].
Even if such an interface could be made to work really well, it seems that it would be pretty distracting to have an office full of people talking to their computers, let alone trying to use a laptop in a public place.
Even ignoring that, a speech-based interface would still be lacking: Back to dictating shell commands: have you ever tried to dictate a session of shell commands to the person at the keyboard while looking over his shoulder? Even an AI-complete, Turing-test-passing agent (i.e., an actual human) cannot perfectly interpret your spoken shell commands. Telling someone where to click in a GUI can be even worse. In either case, you tend to end up wanting to grab the keyboard and/or mouse from him and do it yourself. That suggests that the keyboard/mouse is better than speech for giving commands. In fact, when talking someone through a GUI, you probably end up pointing at the screen and saying "click here" a lot, i.e., your first reaction is to improvise a "pointer" because you need to point at something.
I suggest that the need to point at things is a fundmental part of any interface. What you really want is to be able to just think at it, but failing that, you'll probably find that putting what you want into words is actually harder than pointing/typing. The only thing I've used that I might like better than the mouse is the stylus on a Palm Pilot. This is a special case with respect to pen mouse devices because the interface is also different -- you tap controls with it, which combines the actions of pointing and clicking. This is a big difference, since you don't have to move an onscreen widget to the control. What I think would be good is to have a camera set up to track your eye movements, so you could just look at something on the screen and squint to tap it. Eye movements are the easiest, fastest and most accurate muscular actions that we are capable of, so it would be good to harness their information-carrying capacity.
"Computer: tea, earl grey, hot."
It's a cool line, but after a while I started wondering why Picard didn't set up a macro so he could just say "Tea" and get his default preference. Maybe if he had occasionally asked for iced tea, or darjeeling or something instead...
[1] I currently do a sort of hybrid "hunt-and-touch" thing, where at least five or six fingers are moving, and they "know" where the keys are, but I have to be looking at the keyboard while doing it; I can get up around forty to fifty words per minute, so it's not much of a problemIt would be nice not to have to take my eyes off the screen, but it's never seemed worth the trouble.
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
The Amiga used to let you do things like this... had two ports - both could be used for either a mouse/joystick/pen/tablet... You could even have two mice :) Or, much more usefully, a mouse and a pen. :)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Yep, got a Kensington expert. I have sent them email several times and only got response like "We don't support Linux." Good to hear they are maybe thinking instead of jerking their knees.
--
Infuriate left and right
I payed 140 for my Wacom Intuos 4x5 graphics tablet from outpost.com. Serial interface. I use it in conjuction with my ps2 mouse all the time. Coolest thing is that the Xfree modules support the wacom product line. I love having a pen to use in gimp now. Makes things so much easier.
"We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
The scroll click on my mouse is programmable to do pretty much anything I want. Here a list of everything I can tell it to do:
-Close Window
-Double Click
-Drag Lock
-Maximize Window
-Middle Button
-Minimize Window
-Next Window
-Page Down
-Page Up
-Paste
-Start Button (mswindows yeah)
-Undo
-Windows Explorer
I dont know what it does with Linux (yet.. installing it on this machine soon), but it did come with the drivers so I assume it does plenty.