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Apple's touch sensitive mouse design axes scroll ball
We're sure we've seen two intriguing Apple patents in the span of 24-hours before, but following up on Cupertino's modular media center gizmo from earlier today comes a slightly modified mouse design that, above all, still doesn't sport a tried and true right-click. All weeping aside, the newfangled design seems to center around a haptic approach, which curiously does away with the scroll ball currently used on Apple's critters and replaces it with a touch-sensitive casing. Apparently, the device would be "capable of switching between operational modes based on the way a user holds or grips the enclosure," which could simplify (or complicate, depending on dexterity levels) all that panning and resizing you currently do manually. Still, there's plenty of mice out there with oodles of macro-love just waiting to be utilized, and while the pseudo-click on the Mighty Mouse may appease some, we can't say we're blown away.
Hands-on with the HTC Artemis
Ok, you know us, we're mad suckers for QWERTY equipped HTC devices. It's just kind of a fact, we love 'em. So we were stoked and all about the HTC Artemis that was due out, but it wasn't anything keeping us up at night. But then we got our hands on one last night, and it was way thinner and sleeker than we'd imagined, especially for a GPS-equipped handheld. That scroll wheel felt just like a Sansa e-series (except even more solid), and dabbed in the middle was a scroll ball a la the SideKick 3 and Pearl. It was a little overwhelming, but we can understand their need to overcompensate for input options when not equipping it with a keyboard. Oh, and do click on for some more shots.
