MultiPoint: What. How. Why. | Charles

vbrunner__
code monkey

i think everyone that has used a computer has thought "what would it be like to have multiple mice?" but i know at least for me i threw the idea out thinking people would trample of each other. but i never thought of the games they demoed(sp?).

great technology. it's just surprising that no one has done this before. (or have they?)

czubin

@vbrunner_ : actually there's MPX (link) (wikipedia)

I was wondering if there was such technology for windows myself since my colleages got quite interested.

Time to watch the video now Smiley

Charles
Welcome Change

As stated in the video, MultiPoint supports much more than just mice (thus not being named MultiMouse) Smiley

This is great stuff. I am very much looking forward to the alpha SDK release.

C

eddwo
Wheres my head at?

I seem to remember that on the Windows98 disc, or some other disc that came with my PC of that era there was a demo movie for the Microsoft EasyBall mouse.

It was designed for small children and the physically impared to use and I'm pretty sure the demo showed how a parent and child could both have mice attached a PC at once and play little games together one one screen. The parent would use a traditional mouse while the child used the EasyBall.
Perhaps it only worked in a few specific programs that came with that hardware device.

If this new Multipoint stuff works with Touch-Screens as well it might be cool to create virtual mixing desks / DJ interfaces.

LaBomba
Summer

Definitely something that can have a very broad application, this is a great idea as an education tool..I wonder if BillG knows of this, he's big on the role of technology in education.

He'll see it eventually I imagine (no pun intended) Tongue Out

rhm

vbrunner__ wrote:
i think everyone that has used a computer has thought "what would it be like to have multiple mice?" but i know at least for me i threw the idea out thinking people would trample of each other. but i never thought of the games they demoed(sp?).

great technology. it's just surprising that no one has done this before. (or have they?)

I've thought about it quite a bit. While most geeks try and control everything with the keyboard and ignore the mouse as much as possible, I'm the opposite - I like to use the mouse as much a possible.

So just think how much more productive I'd be if I could use two mice at once! Especially in those mission-critical Windows apps: Solitaire and Minesweeper.

atkulp

It looks like very exciting technology. I enjoyed the video and look forward to the SDK in January!

Three questions:

Is it easy to create an "admin" mouse? I could very likely want to restrict certain forms, or even controls only to one mouse (probably the teacher's). That way only the teacher can start/stop an activity, while the students can only interact with the relevant options.
As a red-green color-blind male, I wonder if there are other ways of decorating pointers to better differentiate them. Perhaps styles of glowing, or even completely different pointer icons. This could be an important feature to consider.
For non Multipoint-enabled applications, do the multiple mice function as on any other system? In other words, if I don't specifically code for Multipoint, do all mice conflict with each other?

Thanks for the video, and good luck getting to the next step!

osigurdson

It would be great to see this technology applied to touch screen interfaces.

krikan

This is quite interesting and gives some ideas to take this on..
For eg.. Typically it is a major problem for the centralised IT groups to manage the desktops in their various branches.. Currently due to the way things are done, each person at the branch gets a pc with a lot more capacity than what is needed to run their operations.. Most of the business apps reside on servers and very few apps are installed on the desktops themselves..

With the multipoint, the investment really comes down to a smaller number of pc's handling more users each with a monitor & a mouse..
This could also spawn off a business pc category.. Today the business pc is the same as a home pc whereas with multipoint, the business pc could have a different config but with more support for input devices.. So the pc vendors need not worry..

Now... when is the sdk becoming accessible to microsoft customers ? Big Smile