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Technology

Logitech's "Mouse that Feels" 135

Posted by CmdrTaco from the interesting-ideas dept.
Jayvz writes "There is short article on CNN saying that Logitech is to release the iFell MouseMan this fall. It vibrates (or rather feed-back) as you move your cursor over "texturized" pictures. " I saw a variation on this way bacj that was quite practical, but wasn't "texture" it was more "magnetic" (resize a window and have it feel like you're stretching a rubber band... drag a window to a border a feel resistance). Awesome stuff, but I'll believe it when its happening on my desk.
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Logitech's "Mouse that Feels" More

Logitech's "Mouse that Feels"

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  • And you're scolding us for not previewing before submitting.
  • Will you get chills if your computer gets a virus?

  • My users don't need goddamned force feedback from a device that MS can't get to work with an ATI card and SimCity3K...er, "an essential application." They don't need a mouse that has radar for the corner of the screen, or something that buzzes angrily when they try to install any app not written by MS.

    All you hardware people: stop inventing useless shit and build me a mouse that doesn't vacuum up my stupid users' bagel crumbs. That'll be the day.

    -jpowers
  • IT's not a real mouse. It's very modified force feedback joystik with original drivers. I read review of logitec feedback mouse in computer magazine. You cannot detach it off mousepad bescause it's just force feedback joystik. Mousepad is base to which mouse is connected by plastic arm and range of movement is very little. Nothing exciting actually. Mouse on plastic leg.


    R.Dostick
  • How about a toaster that feels love?
    (Look, a Futurama reference, moderate it up ;)

    No no.... it's a red dwarf reference... ah well... moderate it up!

  • The iFell should send out a little jolt of electricity...or it could make javascript very popular on porn sites...onmouseover="iFell.massage" - [grunby]
  • Does the world actually need another device like this?? It sounds more of a novalty than anything, used for a couple days and then tossed in the drawer. Couldn't Logitech (or any other large company) spend it's R&D money and hours on something more useful that might benefit the public a little bit more than a mouse that feels??
  • I was involved in a project at the University of Saskatchewan [usask.ca] in 1991-92 that was doing exactly this. We were working on a NeXTSTEP system to provide a user interface for blind users. I was doing the programming and another senior student was doing the hardware. The basic idea was to provide auditory and tactile feedback so that blind users could manouver through the NeXT's GUI. We included a very nice Text-to-Speech system that used the NeXT's built in DSP, as well as audio signals. The software took advantage of some of the really nifty things that NeXTSTEP allowed in terms of the OS and the application environments to basically capture events before they got to the app, and to capture screen info (from the Disply PostScript system) to feed to the mouse.
  • [Microsoft] has decided not to sell force-feedback mice because people find them distracting and not advanced enough to be of much use on the Web, said Mary Starman, a spokeswoman for Microsoft's hardware division.
    Translation (IMHO):
    1. They haven't figured it out yet.
    2. They have figured it out, and they want Logitech to test the waters for them.
    If the market accepts the iFeel, watch for MS to "suddenly" unveil their own FF mouse. If the gamers go for it most, it will be a Sidewinder instead of an IntelliMouse.

    Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel/Facing down the future coming fast - Rush
  • Slashdot's post on this is all messed up. And I don't mean just the spelling errors. :)

    First, this is NOT the force-feedback mouse that Logitech released last year. This one is more simple, with something similar to a "Rumble Pack" type functionality (similar to today's game consoles.)

    Also, the type of functionality that CmdrTaco describes (magnetic) is from that other force-feedback mouse. This one will be limited to vibrating.

    Microsoft won't do one ... focus groups have told them that they find it distracting and a nuisance. I tend to agree ... the force-feedback joystick was a novel toy, but I went back to a regular stick to increase my accuracy.

    Personally, I might use it in busines applications, or maybe web-browsing (I'd never code a page for it, though), but I'd NEVER use it for gaming. My aim would suffer terribly!

  • At MIT, Martha Minksy (i?) was testing a way to have a computer generate tactile feeback with magnetism.

    She had a box, which you had to move a knob and then report on what type of texture you feel. It was controlled by magnets.

  • This I'd like to see. (Score:4)

    by dietcrack ( 219911 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @11:57AM (#838851) Homepage

    Reuters:

    Computer security experts warn of a new virus running rampant around the web, specifically targeted at users of the iFeel Mouseman force-feedback mouse. The virus, once it infects the user's computer, causes the mouse to zip off the desktop and repeatedly attack the user's genital area.

  • I shudder to think what effects the fabled Blue Screen Of Death might impart...

    ---
  • I'm not saying that I wouldn't want force feedback when I move over something, because I do. My question relies more on, will Logitech create Linux drivers for it when it comes out? I still have yet to see full use out of my four button Logitech mouse (I don't have the skill to do what I want with it, nor the time to learn the skill), and from what I have been able to decern from their site they have no plans on porting the software they created for Win9x to Linux, or NT for that matter.

    I am about to contact Logitech and request full Linux support.
    Their website for contacting Logitech is here [logitech.com].
  • But they had a pin-grid array in the X-men movie. It kept showing a map of the city...

    Would special effects count as "prior art"?

    :Pd:

  • Yeah, I'm taking about porn (jeeze, at least 5p311 it right...)

    But really. If we have personal, vibrating devices that are scriptable (as they naturally would be) by Javascript or somesuch... the porn sites would natuurally have to compete about who would script their mice the best.

    Instead of the current mode of competition (see who can collect more banner-ad clickthroughs, leading to more credit card numbers, while giving away the least number of images pirated from Usenet) we would have...

    Sites competing on who could physically tease you the best, using advanced algorithms to vibrationally manipulate you into giving your credit card number RIGHT NOW so that you gain instant access to the full, uncensored mouse script archives...

    which would be about 20 files pirated from Usenet. Oh, crap.

  • iFell? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And iCantGetUp?
  • Maybe it is exactly what is needed for Linux to take the lead in the GUI department. Mouse over a folder and get tactile feedback depending on how many items are in it. Clicking and dragging could indicate how close to the edge you are of a window or screen. YOu could even get real feedback before doing in edge flip to the next desktop.

    This could be an area where Linux has a chance to get the lead. Lets face it, there isn't exactly much happening (exciting wet your pants stuff mind you) in GUI development lately. Maybe all we need is new hardware.
  • The mouse would still have 1 or more balls for the force feed back and use optical part for tracking
  • First, we have no buttons...
    And no mouse balls (optical)
    Now we have fake resistance/texture
    Soon, we'll have retinal-projection displays (as They already have prototypes).
    At what point does it become more cost-effective to just close your eyes and think of neat stuff?
  • I wonder what this is going to do for the online porn industry....

  • What is this world coming to... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now I'll have to learn the keyboard commands for Internet Explorer so I can keep one hand free to surf for porn, *and* keep the vibrating mouse in my pants!

  • Mice are overrated (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Back in my day no real man would touch a mouse, those were for sissy men and little girls! A real man would just type with his fingers! And we liked it!
  • Imagine the new meaning of destructive viruses!

    Making your mouse run around on your desk, knocking over coffee cups, spilling coffee on your keyboard and documents, scaring women and children ... There is noe end to the "posibillities" ...
    ---

  • TO DO List (Score:4)

    by NoahPhex ( 20278 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @11:36AM (#838864) Homepage
    1) Purchase a iFell MouseMan
    2) Install the mouse
    3) Search for texturized porn
  • online porn will never be the same!
  • ...Logitech could find a way to keep mouse boogers from clogging up the rollers around my mouse ball.

    Say what? You've got boogers around your mouse ball? That's your problem. Not ours.

    --Crackwhore
  • I would irtrester in how they plan to implement this, as it would probaly require a mouseball to provide resistance to movement. also simple vibration would be kinda dumb. this would also make the mouse buylky most likely
  • Do you turn blue and spout unintelligible error codes when NT BSOD's?
  • An acquaintance of mine is deafblind and I tried to get hold of this Logitech Force Feedback mouse here in Holland.

    Well, apparently Logitech does import them, and they sell them to a couple of distributors, but then they completely lose track of them. They can't tell which shops have them. Logitech gave me the phone numbers of the 4 distributors, who either didn't want to talk to me because I was an end-user or just had no idea in which shops these mice ended up...

    I'm quite appalled by this. I understand they don't make these mice specifically for handicapped people but at least Logitech could be a bit more helpful. I might be contacting Logitech HQ in Switzerland or the USA...

    Jacco
    ---
    # cd /var/log

  • By adding a tactile response to mouse motion, i.e. getting some resistence when on a button or link, more people with vision problems will be able to use computers.

    Admittedly, there are already many other tools that provide a better method of browsing and are a much better interface than a tactile response mouse, but it is a tool that might appeal to someone. I'm also thinking about people with joint disorders or difficulties with fine motion. Having some 'stickiness' on links (sticky="2") might make web surfing a bit easier for them.

    There are many more uses than just games.

  • I shudder to think what effects the fabled Blue Screen Of Death might impart...

    One word: Mystique.

  • Skeptical is one thing. Skepticism is good. But slashdot's getting cynical... Not that I blame them.

  • Actually it *is* a mouse. You're referring to a totally different unit, an older attempt at force-feedback. With all due respect, it probably would have been useful to have first *read* the article, which specifically mentions the unit you're talking about:

    And Logitech....came out
    last year with a mouse that employed force-feedback technology. But that was a clunky model that had to remain on its hard plastic console, making it rather impractical.

  • that is very scary. Imagine what it will be mostly used for... porn
  • ...the only practical use I can see for it is as an aid to the blind.

    I wonder will it be marketed for the blind?

    I doubt it.

  • ... iFell over.

    The poster could at least have got the product name right!

    But seriously, this iFeel thing seems like a particularly useless gimmick.

    Surely things like this just confuse the issue of interaction with the computer; before long we'll be having interfaces where you have to 'squeeze the mouse gently on the smooth part of the button that smells like flowers', or something equally ridiculous.

    At what point do the extra 'senses' given by the gimmicks just become a hinderance to using the system?

  • Y'know, I wouldn't mind having a winamp visualization plugin that makes my mouse dance when I'm not using it, heh.

    I just hope they don't figure out a way to make this thing wireless-- "Dammit, mouse, come BACK HERE! And leave my cat alone!"

  • I already have my beeper and cell phone in there.
  • Since it is from MS #1 competition in the squeaky department, this will never be part of windows, so it will never get dev support so it is dead already. Wait 5 years for the patents to expire, and than MS will "invent" it for us. We will be oh so happy and thrilled when they do! Proof that they are innovating!

    quit dreaming people!

    JON
  • I want an alarm clock that can feel pain... ;)
  • blind users everywhere have the chance to use it.

    there is a product called openbook (http://www.hj.com) which is for blind people. you can scan a mag, a book, whatever and then by moving the force-feedback mouse over the scanned page it will change texture if you are on a heading, a picture, a colum and such. it reads it as well as you pass over the various items giving each area a distinctive feel. pretty neat as it give blind users a quick "feel" for a page and the layout of the info.
    the combo of the two give us a peek at the future of accessibility software.
  • Won't it be hard to do feedback mouse using an optical mouse?
  • Maybe I'm just getting old, but why does the general popultion need force feedback anything?
    I thought for sure this thing would die when people began relizing this sort of thing hinders game play.
    When I want to point my gun at somebody, I want to do it NOW. I don't need the extra time and force this will take up.
    When I bank an aircraft, I wan't maximum response, NOW!
    Sure, realizim is great, but how many people will want to sacrifice a win, for 'realizim'?
  • See guys? Chicks are geeks too!


    Refrag
  • This would have to be defined by the user, because if not all banner ads would have a stickiness of 10.


    Refrag
  • Maybe you should buy Apple's new "buttonless" mouse. I'm considering getting one because my mouse-finger hurts after a while. In Windows I can always use the Context key on my keyboard instead of right-clicking.


    Refrag
  • Making my *fingers* vibrate isn't much of a come-on. But if they develop a doohickey that will do things to my limbic system, as the famous metal sphereoid did in Woody Allen's science-fiction sendup Sleeper, well, I'll whip out that drastic plastic faster than you can say "Linda Lovelace does LinuxWorld."

  • The tactile senses are not dominated by vibratory inputs

    I'd disagree. For small amplitudes, especially with a finger that isn't travelling over the surface, vibration provides a pretty good simulated sensation for touch. Sure, it's different -- but it feels the same.

  • There is work on this topic going back to the turn of the century by David Katz in Sweden. He used to claim that roughness had form components for rougher surfaces, and was dominated by vibration for smoother surfaces.

    More recent studies have focussed on surfaces about as rough as 400 grit sandpaper or rougher. This would correspond to Katz' form region of roughness. It is quite clear that vibration has absolutely nothing to do with roughness perception in this regime. It is purely spatial, and nearly 100% based on the firing of mechanoreceptors sensitive to pressure on the skin. Do a Medline search on my name to find out more.

    There is some doubt about roughness over finer surfaces, as the models have not been adequately tested yet. But psychophysical studies consistently find roughness to be purely spatial, and some studies even adapt the skin to vibration to determine if there is "cross talk" between vibration senses and roughness. Indeed, any such crosstalk is minimal.

    The point I am making is that taking a three dimensional surface and exploring it with your finger is dramatically different from receiving a one dimensional interpretation of the surface through vibration. And I only refer to roughness, which is only one dimension of the textural components of an object. There is also hardness/softness, temperature, not to mention actual three dimensional conformation.

    And in fact this mouse is not even translating surface texturet to vibration. It is increasing force feedback to correspond to roughness in some sense. It will be tougher to push the mouse over sandpaper than glass.

  • New use for an old joke (Score:5)

    by FascDot Killed My Pr ( 24021 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @12:18PM (#838890)
    ...the iFell MouseMan...

    I'll get one of these when I can also buy the iCan'tGetUp Keyboards and imHavingTroubleBreathing Joystick.
    --

  • Some thoughts (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @12:19PM (#838891) Homepage Journal
    Logitech taught my mouse to feel, but now all it feels is hate.

    Hope it doesn't use batteries. My secretary found out the pager vibrated and wore the batteries out.

    We needed to sell something like this back when I was doing tech support, except that instead of vibrating it could deliver a powerful electric shock when the support rep generated a special DMTF tone. On more than one occasion I could have really used the ability to administer pain to the user. (The original suggestion was to wire thermite to the motherboard during the manufacturing process...)

  • Instead of talking about it on /., you should run off and patent that idea. Working out how to control a pin grid array shouldn't be too hard.

  • for the disabled (Score:3)

    by Docrates ( 148350 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @12:22PM (#838893) Homepage
    First I thought of porn (like everyone else it seems). then i say myself feeling for the borders of a window in order to resize it and think it'd be kinda cool, but couldn't put my finger on real value.. then it hit me.

    wouldn't this make a terrific tool for the disabled? just come up with a brailey(sp) like code and all a blind person would have to do is move the mouse over the lines of text and he's reading it... the mouse would have to be very sensitive, but even if it isn't, with the right setup, heck it could feedback morse code back to the reader!.. just a thought

  • Slightly OT. Sorry =P

    Kind of reminds me of my human factors professor's research. He, like all good human factors geeks who had funding from NASA, decided to build a flight stick that will give feedback when the pilot is in landing mode. There will be a little moving "pin" in the joystick that will be felt by the palm and the fingertip, telling the pilot where the plane was in relationship to wherever the ILS (or MLS, whichever you prefer) said was the landing strip.

    Mind you, this has nothing to do with the plastic rodents, but it was still cool playing with it.


    --
  • ...what the mouse does when looking at pr0n?

    From article - It vibrates (or rather feed-back) as you move your cursor over "texturized" pictures.

    Thus you have the answer. It vibrates. *g*

    =================================
  • Actually, vibration is probably best. While doing some programming using Immersion technology (used in the Logitech Mouse), there are demonstrations about increased accuracy using their technology that are quite impressive. While this was using the Wingman FF mouse - which is significantly different, because the Wingman supports directional forces while the iFeel Logitech does not - the idea is the same. Most of the effects humans feel can be mathmatically modeled best with vibrations. The math involved in haptics (essentially the study of force feedback) is very complicated, but suffice to say that doing a pin-grid array doesn't really add much to the sensation of what you feel. Pin-grid can be very helpful, but are poor at simulating reality. I don't proposed that Force Feedback, especially in their current implementations, are the end all solution, but the direction that they are trying to move them in is not agumentation, but simulation of the human touch.
  • Just a technacallity (sp?)... The MS optical mice came before the apple-buttonless-mouse (i know other laser optical mice predated the MS one, but those sucked because of the mousepads.)

    Mark Duell

  • Warning: this may or may not work.

    Having said that, from http://www.xfree86.org/current/mouse.4. html [xfree86.org]:

    Option "Buttons" "integer" Specifies the number of mouse buttons. In cases where the number of buttons cannot be auto-detected, the default value is 3.

    Can't you just put the value of "4" in there?


    --
  • So it vibrates. Hmm...

  • I saw a working unit at a USB plugfest about a year ago. It seemed very nearly complete at that time. I wonder what took them so long.

    Dave
    ~""~
  • I don't think this would do wonders for the porn industry. It would be like feeling somebody's breast through the block of plywood you're holding.

    It may help a lot with navigating the desktop however. After a little use you should be able to do many tasks (like re-sizing your window) without paying close attention to the mouse cursor on the screen.
  • Instead of this stamp-sized mousepad you see on laptops, why not use the mousepad and a finger? Less carpal-tunnel problems, more resolution/space and tap for clicking, etc. Then we could write clever programs to detect gestures, maybe even simple handwriting. Of course feedback would be problematic, I just love the mousewheel in BeOS.
  • The worst part is when it leaves messes all over the mouse pad when a program dumps core.
  • Won't it be hard to do feedback mouse using an optical mouse?

    I don't rate this at all. The article says it will "allow online shoppers, for example, to get a feel for the material they're buying" - exactly how we've come to expect from those Playstation controllers, I expect.

    Basically a rotating motor (with an off-centre weight attached) just isn't going to be able to provide very much information to the user: like it says in the articke, things "can be made to feel metallic or rubbery", and I suspect that is all it can do. Obviously it is a slow motor rotation speed is "rubbery" and a fast motor rotation speed is "metallic". Then what else is there left to choose from?
  • I think you mean Margaret, not Martha, daughter of the famous professor (whose bald pate was once mistaken for a ping-pong ball by a ping-pong playing robot.)
  • Their trackballs use infrared transmitters and receivers to follow the motion of those little black dots on the ball, no rollers. It's a shame all the shapes are so wacky...
    Hey, one man's wacky is another man's just right. I love the Trackman Marble - I have long thin hands, and the TM is about the only mouse/trackball I've found that actually supports my hand instead of leaving parts of it drooping off the edges. The no-mechanical-parts-dotball is a thing of beauty, too. The only thing that could improve the design, IMHO, is if they could come up with a way for the support points not to collect crud. Of course, in another case of OMWIAMJR, Logitech seems to have fallen in love with the scroll wheel and is sticking it everywhere possible, and I can't stand that stupid thing.
  • I would love to be able to feel it when I erase something or use a colored pencil in photoshop. It brings the mouse one step closer to a stylus and drawing tablet without the expense and extra hardware.

  • I've had a logitech gaming mouse with feedback support (this one is tethered to a fixed mouse pad). http://www.logitech.com/cf/products/productovervie w.cfm/30 Most of the technology for this comes from a company called immersion...http://www.immersion.com/ There is a really cool side to the mouse, it has more than just simple textures (what you feel when you move across a button or something). For example, one demo is that you are playing pong with an elastic paddle, so that the velocity of the ball forces your mouse back slightly or alot). This feedback you can get on this thing is really amazing, I wish there was a RTS game that supported it (well, one that I like to play). This bring me to an unfortunate fact, which is that mostly my mouse sits unplugged. While it feels extremely cool, I haven't used it for two reasons. First, there is no real driver support for games (carmack has said that he won't support it and views feedback as a gimic). Soldier of Fortune supposedly has support, but that's the only 3d shooter I'm aware of. I game in Windows for the most part (more games, better drivers), and wish m-soft would release a mouse if only so they would add feedback to direct x. (Of course I wish some other os's would get better for games.) Secondly, the mouse I have doesn't have a scroll button and isn't as nice as the microsoft like mice... which is something the new one from logitech has. So I might consider getting the new logitech and trying it out. I wonder if having to move from a fixed mouse-pad has made the feed-back support any less responsive. At any rate if you just want this thing for navigating around your OS I would recommend it, the technology is pretty interesting. However if you want it for games you will probably be disappointed unless there is some more dedicated developer support behind this thing.
  • I've thought for a long time that it would be cool to write a gag program for a motorized-feedback mouse that makes it run off the edge of the desk when it's been idle for too long.
  • To the contrary it seems to me that an interface like the pin-grid array would merely open the door to a myriad of problems. Remember that the more control over our environment we give the computer the more likely it is that someone will find a way to make that computer abuse said power. Just imagine a rash of viruses hitting AOLers with pin-grid pointing devices and having thousands of people in hospitals with the words "AOL SUX" tattooed on their hand by their own mouse!

    gophish@wcnet.org
  • Yes. I knew it was something with an Ma. Sorry Margaret.

  • Saw one, a proof-of-concept for the visually handicapped.. A braille key, some TTL logic, and four wires to the serial port. About $30 in parts, cheapo $9 mouse included.

    Couldn't find it in the IBM Patent database, so the concept is prolly free of licensing issues and such if you'd like to do it..
  • Yeah, I'll believe it when I try it out and not just for 5 minutes while the Salesman-From-Hell belches out all it's virtues instead of being swept away by an extremely localized hurricane.

    A couple years ago I had the pleasure of using a Gyromouse [gyration.com] and it absolutely rocked. I'll get another one as soon as I ditch my laptop for a desktop system. The true beauty wasn't just the wireless operation, but that I could click with my thumb. Thumb is much stronger and reaction time seems shorter, probably due to shorter arc length of rotation (i.e. pressing button on 2" digit instead of 3") Fatigue from clicking usually never set in, even after hours of surfing or game play.

    Maybe Gyration and Logitech could get together and make a true gyro with resistance, etc.

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000

  • What I *really* want Logitech to do ... (Score:3)

    by legLess ( 127550 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @12:35PM (#838915) Journal
    ...is create a mouse that I didn't have to click so damn hard. No - really. My carpal is bad, and Logitech doesn't help.

    I ended up hacking the damn thing (MouseMan Wheel) apart and finding the little copper spring (very little - 8mm x 2mm x ~.2mm) the controls the click force. Bend it just so - viola - touch-sensitive mouse. It's good, but not perfect. It took me a couple hours to get it just right, and although there's no appreciable click point, there's still too much motion for my tastes (2 or 3 mm at the end of the button).

    But it sure would be nice, as some people posted here before, to have a true touch-sensitive mouse. Maybe with one big "button" that could be programmed in zones. This is one area where having source code does you very little good. ;)
  • There's lots of desireable textured body parts. Nipples, pubes, labia, etc.
  • Porn Sites. It'll then be the ultimate geek device!
  • Diablo 2 -- too hot? OW MY HANDS! too cold? ugh, I can't move my mouse and hand!

    Quake? Lighting gun makes you shocked!

    Yikes! Talk about realism! :)

    Seriously, has there been any games or demos supporting this yet?

  • I remember back in 1992, at SIGGRAPH, I was watching a demonstration where someone (at UNC, I think) had spent a ton of research grant money on connecting a electron tunneling microscope to a force-feedback arm. In his demonstration, he showed how he used this to provide tactile sensations of the molecular surface being scanned. "I could actually _feel_ the surface of the molecules" he said.

    There was a "cool" factor to this, certainly, but I said to myself, "Self, how is _feeling_ the molecule surface really useful for, well, anything? Will it make things easier to figure out what compounds will bond? Doubt it, unless you're good at braille." Basically, the whole thing seemed like a waste of money to me.

    Years later, force feedback still has yet to impress me. There have been some things that are partially interesting (some FF 3D modeling tools recently), but on the whole, even in places where FF seems applicable (e.g. Driving games), it just doesn't work for me. This Logitech thing seems particularly useless...why would I want to feel my UI or images, again, unless I was blind.

    John Carmack was quoted once as saying force-feedback was a gimick (feel free to let me know I'm misquoting). I tend to agree.
  • I've got a million of these moderately good ideas. If I spent my time trying to patent them, I wouldn't have any to develop my truly brilliant ideas, like safemode, Kiddie Script, and Kill All Humans [boswa.com]. Not to mention such important things as posting on /. [slashdot.org]

    <g>

    ---
    Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
  • How about an application for blind people? Kind of like brail, maybe that when the mouse is passed over a certain area of the screen it starts vibrating one way or another.

    Right now I know there are programs tha tread text and all, but this would actually let someone who cannot see use a computer on their own, along with the speech synthesizer.

    I think this would be a great tool for people with this horrible problem.

  • Re:Immersion Technology (Score:3)

    by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Monday August 21, 2000 @01:56PM (#838928) Homepage
    The tactile senses are not dominated by vibratory inputs. Indeed, the dominant component of texture is roughness, and it is purely spatial. Being able to mimic the surface texture, or even the surface roughness, would be extremely useful.

    As far as force feedback, I generally think of it as quite a bit less useful than touch. You can numb the fingertips experimentally to demonstrate the really crude sorts of movements that are available with proprioceptive feedback but not cutaneous feedback.

    This mouse is a cool step in the proper direction - but is VERY crude in simulation of actual touch.
  • There's another article at InfoBeat [infobeat.com] as well.

    ObCredit: I got that link from GeekNews.net [geeknews.net].

    Alex Bischoff
    Interested in building a roof over your cubicle? [slashdot.org]
    ---

  • In the late 70's (maybe the first couple of years of the 80's), Popular Electronics reported on a device that used a tiny video camera and a 64x64 grid of electrodes on the user's back to impart images. A user claiemd that it was probably comparable to a bad b&w television picture.

    I want to say that it was the one-page article right before the back cover of that issue, but it's been 20 years, so don't hold me to that :)

  • Yuck (Score:2)

    by Pflipp ( 130638 )
    A normal mouse sometimes slips. The result is that no matter how hard you try, your pointer won't moved. Being in the spell of this interaction, I always start squishing and pushing the mouse because it seems that it it stuck. This always leaves me with a sore hand.

    And now this! A mouse that is /made/ to refuse. Yuck!

    It's... It's...

  • This could be... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... incredibly good for tech support. Imagine a mouse that springs up and bashes an id10t on the head
  • There was a force-feedback mouse last year that was hardwired to a special mouse pad, and provided varying levels of resistance (like the controls of a plane or car) as configured by a game. It was very expensive, wouldn't work without the mouse pad, and didn't gain too much support form the industry. Sounds similar to the story we hear 40,000 times every time we see a comment about the optical mouse. :)
  • I don't think this has actually been well thought out. Speaking as someone who has to watch his hands and wrists all the time vibration and extra resistance is the last thing I want to do to my hand.

    Certainly vibrating controllers (such as the Playstation's) make my hands hurt in under a minute. Their manual acknowledges the danger, telling you not to use the vibration function if it makes your hand hurt.

    Mousing also makes my hand hurt if I keep at it for a while - I use a trackpad instead of a mouse because of this - so I'm pretty skeptical that I want to add any extra resistance to a mouse.

    Certainly the pin-grid array would be a better way to go - feel, not "feedback".

  • Re:for the disabled (Score:3)

    by arensb ( 17851 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @01:14PM (#838944) Homepage
    wouldn't this make a terrific tool for the disabled? just come up with a brailey(sp) like code and all a blind person would have to do is move the mouse over the lines of text and he's reading it...

    Absolutely, though probably not in the way you describe. Braille involves patterns of dots; a mouse pointer really only represents a single point, so what you describe would presumably be like reading braille with a toothpick (or, for a sighted person, having a 1x1 pixel monitor).

    You could use the mouse as a "spotlight" onto an interesting area, and have some OCR tool translate the text into speech or something. But this doesn't require a force-feedback mouse.

    The interesting thing about this mouse, IMHO, is that it might allow blind people to use off-the-shelf GUIs more easily. Most X window managers allow you to attach sounds to events such as entering/leaving a window, pulling down a menu, etc. Presumably these can now be complemented with textures attached to window borders, buttons, separators between menu items, etc.

    Most online documents and software packages are not specifically designed for blind users (though they are spared the horror of the <BLINK> tag and flashing banner ads). ``Here's your copy of Emacspeak. It's extremely powerful, and millions of people swear by it. What's that? You'd rather use WordPerfect? Gee, I guess you're out of luck.''

    A low-level tool that allows people to use any high-level software package would be a major goodism.

  • Does anyone else think that the porn site industry will get behind this?

    On the Serious note... I think that the tactile feedback is nearly a necessity. I recently bought a Wacom Graphire and while it's kewl and I like the pen... The mouse is still strange. I still reach for my logitech quite often and have them both sitting in easy reach, mostly I use the Wacom for the wheel.

    I think that this has the same principle as a good keyboard. I'm not quite as extreme to like old IBM keyboards... But a good Sun Type 5 is great to type on.

  • Yes but... (Score:5)

    by JCCyC ( 179760 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @11:42AM (#838954) Journal
    - Will you feel the cold in your hand if your app freezes?
    - Will it bite you and pass bubonic plague?
    - Will it run away in terror if you type cat > /dev/mouse?
    - Will it sense lame jokes like these and automatically close the window before you click "Submit"?
  • THE PORN!! just think about it.. I cant wait!

  • Count Microsoft among the skeptics. (Score:3)

    by rw2 ( 17419 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @11:45AM (#838960) Homepage
    The company has decided not to sell force-feedback mice because people find them distracting and not advanced enough to be of much use on the Web, said Mary Starman, a spokeswoman for Microsoft's hardware division.

    The way they have been predicting the market lately this, IMO, pretty much locks things for Logitech. They have a winner on their hands.

    Now if they could just such the damn blinkers off on their light mouse packaging so I can shop without going into a seizure, they'll conquer the world!

  • I really don't know how much I would like having something like this that I use all day long. I mean, it sounds nice. But isn't it really just eye-candy? Look at the transition effects in Win2k. They were going to be really cool, but now everyone I know just turns them off.

    I get pissed when my mouse runs in to a piece of dirt on the desk and causes it to act different than I expect. I don't see how it will be much different if the app is going to be that dirt for me. Guess I'll wait and see though.

  • This is almost exactly what is needed. (Score:5)

    by TheDullBlade ( 28998 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @11:45AM (#838962)
    The problem with mice is that you've always had to execute fine motor control with no tactile feedback. It takes too much concentration and slows everything down. When you can feel a button, it will be much easier.

    But vibration is not the ideal way to do it. What would be perfect is instead of the buttons, have a small pin-grid array (like those toys you can press your hand or face onto and they'll retain the contours on the other side) connected to electromagnetic actuators to create a small textured area so you can really feel fine details (especially edges) with your fingertips.

    Of course, that would be much more expensive, but would greatly improve the usability of GUIs.

    ---
    Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
  • I tried one of these (a feedback mouse) two years ago. I used it for two minutes and have pined for one since. It may be crude, but then what parts of a computer interface are not primitive? Look at the damn keyboard.

    Anyway, this mouse was terrific, you could feel when you were over buttons, window edges, etc.
    The idea that you will be able to feel textures in content (like porn) is kind of silly, IMHO. However, the benifits of bumps and textures for common mouse tasks are overwhelming. Talk about productivity improvements.

    Try the GIMP with this, you can never go back. Feel which objects have been selected, get a gentle blip when two edges line up. Now, that's better than porn, I'll tell ya!
  • How about a toaster that feels love?

    (Look, a Futurama reference, moderate it up ;)

  • Cool paper (Score:3)

    by TheDullBlade ( 28998 ) on Monday August 21, 2000 @03:34PM (#838968)
    This paper [uea.ac.uk] is about research like that.

    Vibration is indeed useful, I never meant to dispute that. However, I still think a pin grid array would be more useful (provided it had high-enough resolution).

    ---
    Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
  • I don't know if many people will find a person that has a textured skin very attractive, though. Are we talking about Klingon porn here, or what? :-)

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