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:
“All beauties contain, like all possible phenomena, something eternal and something transitory,—something absolute and something particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction skimmed from the common surface of different sorts of beauty. The particular element of each beauty comes from the emotions, and as we each have our own particular emotions, so we have our beauty.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:MThe first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;Mthe second, those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tables ... without breaking and mutually destroying them both.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The lazy manage to keep up with the earth’s rotation just as well as the industrious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)