Mechanisms Using Absolute Measures of Rotation
• Tablet/Digitiser Puck
The patent for an Absolute position controller, US 4,814,533, is the earliest know reference to this type of input device. However, it was the patent for an orientational mouse computer input system, US 5,162,781, which suggested using a tablet with a detectable pattern or grid and sensors in the puck for computer navigation.
The Wacom Intuos 4D Mouse puck was the first commercial rotating “mouse.” The product was not a standalone mouse but rather a tablet accessory.
• Compass
The Orbita mouse is the first commercially released non-tablet rotating mouse. Licensed and commercialized by Australian company Cyber Sport, the Orbita is equipped with a patented compass mechanism which solved the problems which plagued earlier rotating mechanisms. The inbuilt compass provides the mouse with ability to detect rotation based on the Earth’s magnetic field so that it can accurately maintain orientation once the ‘up’ direction is specified. The round design makes it completely rotatable, spinning freely on ball bearings, and is usable at any angle due to the ‘push and squeeze’ button configuration encased in a silicone soft shell. The mouse reports rotation as scroll wheel commands so compatible with most applications.
Due to the round shape the Orbita mouse is commonly confused as being similar to the original, circular USB iMac mouse. However, the two mice are functionally different, primarily because the iMac's mouse is not a rotating mouse. The Orbita, unlike the Puck mouse, is designed to be ergonomic, with the round shape lending practical aid to the mouse's spinning action, and is not a purely æsthetic trait.
Read more about this topic: Rotational Mouse
Famous quotes containing the words absolute, measures and/or rotation:
“War is bestowed like electroshock on the depressive nation; thousands of volts jolting the system, an artificial galvanizing, one effect of which is loss of memory. War comes at the end of the twentieth century as absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to “feel good” about themselves, their country, is a measure of that failure.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“The lazy manage to keep up with the earth’s rotation just as well as the industrious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)