Can
you imagine controlling your computer with a peripheral that resembles
a fluffy bar of soap? Well hear us out, because the Soap pointing
device from Microsoft Research offers to combine the accuracy of a
traditional optical mouse with the freedom of a wireless, even
desk-free peripheral. The device, which consists of a soft, fluffy hull
coating a wireless optical mouse core, reads the fabric's movement when
the user applies outside pressure, and reports it as a position (think:
rolling a bar of soap around in your hand). Through a demonstration in
combination with a mobile keyboard in Unreal Tournament (albeit with
dumb bots), the creators have shown that Soap offers a degree of
accuracy that comes close to a table-bound mouse; when the user
squeezes, the Soap can even outclass desktop mouse performance in large
wall display setups. If users can cope with the idea of blasting away
fiends in UT with a ball of fluff and Soap gets a commercial release,
if nothing else you can be sure that an entire cottage industry will
spring up around supplying fake eyes and tails to turn the Soap into a line-up of cute, pointable rodentia.[Via hackaday]
thats awesome. I want one now.
Posted at 11:13AM on Aug 25th 2006 by noobs [ ]