Apple extending iPhone’s multi-touch to mice?

Will iPhone's touch screen technology show up in a new mouse soon? CraveCNET.com reports that it could, if the mouse described a patent application spotted by Hrmpf.com ever goes into production. Like the new iPhone, the mouse described in the patent has no buttons, just continuous surface made of an "optically transmissive material." A "multipoint touch-detection mechanism" could detect your finger movements. You'd be able to program certain movements of your fingers--swiping, tapping, rotating--to perform certain actions like opening apps, rotating images, and resizing windows. Users would be able to perform gestures, such as pinching or a virtual scroll wheel, as well as the normal range of left, right mouse clicks and scrolling. Naturally, the mouse would be illuminated with an internal light. It would also have some kind of fingerprint recognition.

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 19, 2007
  Will iPhone's touch screen technology show up in a new mouse soon? CraveCNET.com reports that it

• Anonymous
  July 19, 2007
  Michael Carr told me the iPhone-like mousepad I described in this post already existed three years ago -- because Apple bought the multi-touch technology from a company called Fingerworks (http://www.fingerworks.com/) which was selling that exact product. Michael says he personally owns the Fingerworks keyboard, which is a keyboard and a mouse in one single multitouch device.  I looked at the Fingerworks web site.  The products looks awesome but are no longer available for sale.

• Anonymous
  July 20, 2007
  Michael says... Fingerworks ceased all sales the moment Apple bought them... :( I still love my keyboard though. You don't have to move your hand away from the keys to use the mouse; just use two fingers instead of one and the surface recognizes that you are mousing instead of typing. It really saves a lot of back-and-forth motion between the keyboard and the mouse. It won a "Best of Innovations" award at CES in 2005.