Death Of The Mouse?
appdeveloper.intel.com
appdeveloper.intel.com
Hence, there has to be a horizontal, desktop-surface that we manually interact with and a vertical surface that we look at. This seems to require some kind of virtual agent that represents the hand on the screen. I don't think mouses and keyboards are going away any time soon (even though they might get enhanced with other technologies)
Also, many marvelous masterpieces have been created by painters working with an easel, where the requirement of having to lift their arms doesn't seem to have been too much of a distraction.
If you really want to interact with a horizontal input device and a vertical output device, mice are not the only option. Pen tablets like those made by Wacom come to mind.
EDIT: Also check out the BendDesk which tries to address the horizontal/vertical issue: http://hci.rwth-aachen.de/benddesk
Basically, it all revolves around strain: We don't want to strain our arms by holding something up in the air for a long time and we don't want to strain out neck by holding the head in an imbalanced position for a long time. As long as the head can sit more or less balanced on the neck, we are fine. Hence, if we sit back, the comfortable position for the head is to look slightly downwards compared to the rest of the body. However, the head actually is still upright, only the body is at an angle. Of course, we can still move our eyes without straining the neck muscles. We are fine with looking something like 45° downwards. (Actually, we are most comfortable with looking at the ground a few dozen meters/feet away. That is the natural looking angle.)
Hence, monitors should sit slightly below eye level (for practical reasons, they usually extend from there to desktop level). Manual input devices should be located slightly below elbow level one forearm-length in front of the belly.
It will be interesting, which manual input devices will sit there in the future. But I would guess that they will always sit there, and not on the display.
Bad ergonomics though. I actually got what I call a reading injury. 45 minute walk to work gets boring after a while, and after getting tinnitus (which when it was bad is /really/ bad) I was paranoid about listening to music or podcasts. So I read a book on my walk. Walking plus reading = bad for your neck. Took a couple of weeks of not read-walking to get my neck back to not hurting.
That's an extreme example though. However, even in simpler terms, your neck is not made to be held at an angle for extended times. When you curl up on the couch with a book, you'll usually have good support. Do that same angle in an office chair 40 hours a week and you'll start running into problems.
But seriously .. As an avid gamer I can't see the mouse going any place for a long time. Eye tracking or a USB port into the back of the head are the only viable-ish alternatives I can imagine due to the extremely precise and fast interaction needed.
P.S: I can't help but think the "death of.." articles are just to get page views with sensational titles and articles, mind you thats been the standard for newspapers since before the net.
I play both between console and desktop and whilst I find console play more fun, I do find I'm far better at desktop. In Unreal Tournament I was known for my crazy Ion Canon bombings (alternate fire several times and then hit each one with a regular fire to make them explode from well across the map), this transferred over to Halo where I was known for my carbine headshots at similar crazy range... on Xbox I'm now known for shotgun and melee because the aiming fucking sucks, still generally lead on a server though so I can't complain too much!
Does anyone know of an FPS multiplayer game that users can play from both a PC and consoles? It would be interesting to see the outcome .. and I know where my money will be.
Of course you won't notice most of those issues on the console games... because they're designed so that you don't need more than N buttons, they're not as fast as promode quake, they add other elements to shift the idea from the raw fps (multiplayer q1/q3-pm being prime examples probably) to a goal based game, team play, etc.
It seems that you are proclaiming that touch would provide more flexibility at the expense of maximum speed and efficiency. I would actually say it is exactly the other way around: Touch killing the mouse makes about as much sense as airplanes killing helicopters. And you know what, I actually kind of prefer airplanes for most commercial flights just as I would say that touch interfaces are actually faster to use and easier to learn than mouse interfaces.
Of course, I often do need helicopter precision on my desktop... But yay for the iPad for casual gaming, websurfing and communicating.
The helicopters vs. airplanes thing is not a judgment on which is superior - you missed the point; the idea is that when helicopters came around, a lot of new possibilities opened up in flight, some of which were traditionally served by fixed-wings... but in the end both have their uses, and neither killed each other.
I haven't used a mouse in years.
For comfort, imo the whole thing needs to be lower, closer to your legs. If you're using a standing position instead of sitting, just change the position to closer to your thighs.
Touch might not be the saviour, but dont holdt the mouse as a good example of ergonomics.
Since I still have to live with mice for the foreseeable future, I'm frustrated at the lack of decent wired mice on the market. Wireless mice always give me tracking issues and I don't like the inconvenience of replacing batteries. But every new mouse on the market is wireless now.
I'd love to try the Apple Magic Mouse or even the new Microsoft touch mouse, but I'm not willing to deal with wireless. Therefore, I'm using an IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0, a mouse first released in 2001, because new mouse innovations don't come with USB models anymore.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
On the latest wireless mice: I have tried new wireless mice. It's not the efficiency of the mouse it self thats the problem. It's the fact that they all use AA or AAA cells. Therefore, I have to eventually remove them, charge them, and replace them in the mouse. Plus the NiCad batteries eventually loose capacity after a few cycles (even the nice kind like Eneloop).
The biggest problem is wireless interference and tracking latency that I experience with all wireless mice.
There still is innovation in the mouse field. Placing a touch interface on a mouse is great. From my short experience with one, I've found it to be the biggest innovation since 'scroll wheels' and 'optical tracking'.
Right now, it seems like seems like the mouse market is divided between gamers (people who want the maximum DPI and lots of programmable buttons) and casual users (people who want a simple, lightweight and wireless mouse for there laptop). Someone like myself (a computer professional, who wants something sturdy, comfortable and reliable) is no longer considered a market.
I really would like to use a mouse with a touch surface, but without a wired USB connection, the inconvenience outweighs the benefits.
EDIT: It's obvious how you find it, you said it directly. Change the question to "do you finger-mouse?" :)
mice .. are still quite necessary.
There are plenty of examples of mechanisms for computer interaction that don't require a mouse and cultivate strong loyalty from people who could instead be using a mouse interface: Bloomberg, the unix console, tiling window managers.
People who are into graphics tend towards tablets.
The mouse's success is due to path dependence. New users like it, and so we end up with all these mouse-dependent interfaces.
At a conference it's better to go light, just with your laptop/netbook, carrying a real mouse around doesn't make sense, but when standing in front of a computer at work or home for several hours a real mouse is still more comfortable/ergonomic than a touchpad, although I do find the touchpad more comfortable in situations where I do lots of typing, since it's closer to the keyboard.
I get the trend of smaller / lighter / more portable ... I haven't used a desktop in 2 years. But I still use a good keyboard and mouse when I'm at my desk; anything less is just for superficial usage.
That alone wouldn't be enough to unseat the vulnerable mouse but the advantage the touchpad is that it can track multiple fingers. I envision a future where the keyboard is extended with a kind of flat space that can take precise input from all 10 fingers.
I've seen a demo somewhere that had exactly that, but I don't know what's come of it.
I'll have to take your word for it, but I haven't noticed anything in my minor gaming [1]. But even if it isn't today I don't see why it couldn't be and a mouse will never be able to keep up with multiple inputs a touch interface can. As more and more applications start making use of this feature mice will become less and less usable.
>and the mouse is venerable, not vulnerable
It was indeed a typo, but I would claim it's both at this point. :)
[1] Certain types of games I have, like "flying around shooting stuff" ones require finer control than what I was able to get from a $250 joystick. I had to use the mouse for finer control. I haven't noticed a problem using the touch pad for these.
However, for the last year or so I've exclusively used the Trackpoint on my Thinkpad. Amazing little gizmo. Almost the same precision as a mouse, three buttons to click with, and it keeps your hands in the touch-typing position at all times. I was experiencing pretty bad mouse-button-clicking RSI, and hitting the Trackpoint buttons with my thumbs instead saves me.
Any other fans here?
I think multi-touch is interesting, and I think it's dominant right now in electronics shows precisely because it is new, interesting, and innovative. But I don't think it will be the one and only pointing device to ever exist in the future.
Found the trackpoint hard to learn though - there's a lot of subtle muscle control. Steep curve, but rewarding once you have it.
After each 2-3 day hacking session, i would resurface with paining dry eyes and aching wrist and elbow.
Now, after similar sessions, i am only left with dry eyes.
I haven't really read up about the ergonomics of multi-touch track pads, but i think they inflict either lesser RSI or are attacking a different set of muscles.