UltraSense revealed a piece of tech today that'll open the door to a new generation of devices tomorrow. This is the sort of thing that you read or hear about and ask: "Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?" And in fact, we asked the folks at UltraSense that very question.
While there's a wide variety of keyboards and mice available for desktops users, users on the go have fewer choices if they want to keep the number of peripherals they bring low. There are Bluetooth keyboards that do come with a touchpad but those can hardly be called portable. Enter the Mokibo, a rather ingenious new keyboard that combines both keyboard and mouse in one thing and light package. Not by shrinking the touchpad to almost unusable levels but by enlarging it to the same size as the keyboard itself.
The gloves are off with future Windows notebooks, so says Microsoft and their hardware requirements for Windows 10. This month at the WinHEC event in Shenzhen, China, Microsoft said that future touchpads would need to be far more precise than previous Windows machines. Instead of touchpads that far under-perform compared to the top models, future machines will need to have Precision Touchpads right out the gate.
I readily admit going into this that the thought of implanting a touchpad inside the body is very disturbing to me. That is exactly what scientists at Seoul National University have come up with. This touchpad can be used to write words and play electronic games according to the inventors. It's made from the same sort of soft and stretch hydrogel that is used to make soft contact lenses.
What the iPhone did for touchscreens, so startup Sensel hopes to do for multitouch with Morph, a pressure-sensing touchpad for artists, gamers, and musicians. Embedding a rechargeable array of more than 20,000 touch- and pressure-sensitive sensors into a flat tablet roughly the size of an iPad, Morph can tell not only where you're touching but how hard each press is, with interchangeable overlays to tailor those touches to different apps.
It seems that Apple is taking a U-turn on many of its hardball stances, most of them attributed to the late Steve Jobs: a non-skeumorphic interface, a large screen iPhone, a smartwatch, and probably a huge iPad that might come with a stylus. Now there might be yet another design decision that would go against its previous gospel: an Apple TV remote with a touchpad. Apple has been preaching the simplicity of its remote for years but now it's adding a bit of complexity. At least it's not doing so with a dozen or so buttons.
MIT has a new invention that, upon first glance, looks like a poorly positioned fake thumbnail. The reason is that it is tiny trackpad designed to be mounted on your fingernail, lending perhaps the best yet remote control of your tablet or smartphone. It's one of the more innovative and unusual wearables we've seen in recent months, and though it is odd to behold at first, there are some valid uses for it. Those with certain disabilities might find it convenient, for example, as well as those who want covert control of their phone.
Apple's introduction of its oddly-named "Force Touch" technology on its new MacBook's touchpad might seem a bit eccentric to some, especially those that really don't have much fine control over how hard they tap or press on a trackpad. There are some, however, who are only too happy to capitalize on the technology to improve, and sell, their own products. One of those is Inklet, whose admittedly interesting invention turns your MacBook's touchpad into a makeshift Wacom tablet. Just on a smaller scale and with slightly less features.
The bottle of liquid you're going to see in this article is filled with millions of tiny metal wires. Silver Nanowires permeate this bottle of liquid, each of them highly conductive - enough to sense human touch. Cambrios makes this substance, calling it ClearOhm, Silver Nanowire Coating Material. With it, manufacturers are able to turn strange and varied surfaces - even bendable, transparent surfaces like this piece of plastic - into touch-sensitive surfaces with which they're able to control computing devices - like this simple doodling interface.
With the FIDO Alliance announcing their new standard for authentication, a variety of methods for unlocking your device are now plausible and likely for the near future. One of those methods is biometrics, where a fingerprint is scanned, unlocking your device and/or the features within. To better take advantage of what FIDO is doing and provide us another layer of security without the need for a plug-in, Synaptics is announcing the SecurePad. By cobbling the fingerprint scanner into the touchpad you’re already familiar with, Synaptics hopes your next log-in won’t need the keyboard at all.
If you felt like the Apple Touch ID sensor in the iPhone 5s wasn't enough, that you'd like so much security in your Apple products that it's easier to get locked out than get in, you're in luck. There's a set of patent applications out there this week that show how Apple's Touch ID system could work with touchpad and display abilities in the near future. With these systems in place, Apple would be looking to incorporate multiple pieces of hardware and/or multiple use-cases of the hardware already in place into the secure system they've started with the phone.
Logitech has announced a new wireless keyboard that comes with a built-in trackpad. The TK820 is a new teardrop-shaped keyboard that includes a chiclet style keyboard layout and a huge trackpad built in on the right side. It's not quite as large as Apple's Magic Trackpad or the company's own Wireless Touchpad, but it's larger than any laptop trackpad we've seen, at least.