Benko on the Microsoft Touch Mouse
- Posted: Jan 07, 2011 at 3:38 PM
- 32,946 Views
- 7 Comments
One of my New Year's resolutions is to get more Hrvoje Benko on Channel 9. Every time I see Benko at MSR he's playing with the coolest (and often very secret) new toys, and he's always happy to talk about the interesting new things he's working on. You might remember Benko from our Mouse 2.0 interview, or our look behind Lightspace. In this video Benko talks to us about the work that went on behind the scenes with the new Microsoft Touch Mouse, from the early prototypes that Benko used on his desk, to the challenges they had with moving from corded to wireless. For instance, you might think of the Touch Mouse as a typical mouse when it comes to wireless signal. That's not the case, however, because in addition to X/Y coordinates for the mouse pointer, they also have to send the detailed picture of what's going on with the touch points on the mouse, a hundred times per second. That's a significant chunk of bandwidth over your average mouse. So settle in and spend a few minutes with a very interesting researcher.
Comments Closed
Comments have been closed since this content was published more than 30 days ago, but if you'd like to continue the conversation,
please create a new thread in our Forums,
or
Contact Us and let us know.
Follow the Discussion
Oops, something didn't work.
What does this mean?
Following an item on Channel 9 allows you to watch for new content and comments that you are interested in. You need to be signed in to Channel 9 to use this feature.What does this mean?
Following an item on Channel 9 allows you to watch for new content and comments that you are interested in and view them all on your notifications page.sign up for email notifications?
Looks better than Magic Mouse from Apple. Is it going to work with osx?
@radg: it would work as a normal mouse, but gestures only work on Windows 7.
Looks promising and I hope that the left and right mouse click works as expected. When will it be available in Europe?
@Larry: This zooming in and out during the interview is really annoying
Indeed, that looks promising. Two concerns I have so far:
- How correct it interprets user actions? For example you may just put your finder over its surface and it will be recognized as a mouse click.
- And also I am worried about its ability to scroll large documents properly. For example when you need to scroll a huge document that is essential to be able hit a scroll wheel one time and allow it to scroll the document gradually until you stop it, by putting mouse over a rotating wheel (this is how it works in regular mouse). Based on video presentations you can't do it this way with Microsoft Touch Mouse. When you slide finger down it scrolls a relatively small portion of a document, even if you slide as fast as you can, forcing you to slide your finger several times before reaching the end of large document.
Now waiting for gestures on the Arc Touch mouse...
@koistya: The mouse is built to be a solid everyday mouse for typical Windows users, so I think you'd be pleasantly surprised how well it interprets user actions. There is a mechanical button for clicking, so putting your finer on the mouse won't click anything.
As for scrolling, it works with inertia. Best way to describe it is how scrolling works on many phones today; throw the page hard and it scrolls fast and long, little flicks scroll a little at a time.
Apple's Magic Mouse ripp off, and on top of that they also ripped off Apple's Expose.
Great innovations Microsoft!
Remove this comment
Remove this thread
close