Low Profile Pointing Stick

Abstract

This article describes a low profile, small footprint gel-based pointing device. The gel-based pointing device described herein includes a gel-based body, a tactile surface attached to a first side of the gel-based body, and a base surface attached to a second side of the gel-based body, p. The second side is opposite to the first side. The tactile surface is configured to receive input from a user and the base surface couples the gel-based body to the sensor surface. In at least one embodiment, the gel-based pointing device described herein further includes a sensor for receiving the gel-based pointing device and a resistive, capacitive, pressure, or lateral sensor for detecting movement of the gel-based pointing device. A detector of a change in at least one of position or vertical position.

Description

technical field [0001] Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to user input devices, more particularly but not exclusively to pointing devices. Background technique [0002] A pointing device is an input interface that allows a user to enter continuous and multi-dimensional data into a computer. Pointing devices can facilitate user input with gestures such as pointing, clicking, or dragging. Gestures are translated and used by a computing device in response to user input to modify the user interface, often through movement of the relative position of a pointer or cursor on the user interface. For example, if a user interacts with an input interface such as a touchpad by moving two fingers in a downward or upward motion, the user interface may show a scrolling motion on the currently active page. Two commonly used pointing devices are a touchpad (also known as a trackpad) and a pointing stick. [0003] A touchpad is a pointing device commonly used on laptop computers...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, optical sensor type pointing devices lack an automatic centering mechanism and thus require repositioning by the user of the device

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