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Handhelds Hardware

Gyroscope Gives CellPhones 'Tilt Control' 213

Posted by CmdrTaco from the innovation-in-user-interface dept.
Paul Stamatiou writes "You can now control cellphone activities by simply tilting it. "If you have a game involving keeping a car on the road, you do that by tilting," says company spokesman Jan Ahrenbring. The tilting technique can also be used to sweep large virtual pages across the phone's screen, which acts as window on the information."
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Gyroscope Gives CellPhones 'Tilt Control' More

Gyroscope Gives CellPhones 'Tilt Control'

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  • going to be a distraction while driving...no matter what.
    • Indeed, that's true... but another thing struck me: the notion that the "...technique can also be used to sweep large virtual pages across the phone's screen".

      If the phone is anything like my Motorola T720, if I tilted it in any way, I wouldn't be able to see anything on the screen.

  • Another feature I don't want/need. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <`vasqzr' `at' `netscape.net'> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:06AM (#6849481)

    How about 3 day battery life with 6 hours talk time?

    How about good, clear calls?

    How about not magically losing signal when I walk in to another room?

    • Perhaps you're living in the wrong country. My Nokia GSM has more than 6 hours' talk time, the battery runs for ten days or so, and reception is crystal clear everywhere I go.

      All it is really missing is motion control. That way I can answer the phone simply by picking it up, hold a call by putting the phone down, and scroll through my address list by shaking the phone like a lunatic instead of clicking those damn arrow keys.

      My guess is: if the rocker control is cheap and easy to hook up to the UI, it will be a natural and useful extension to the way we use phones.

      • Re:Another feature I don't want/need. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tempest303 ( 259600 ) <jensknutson@@@yahoo...com> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:18AM (#6849575) Homepage
        Yeah, well, some of us live in the US, where we like to Let the Market Decide(TM), and we apparently Decided to get Screwed with crap like CDMA instead of the pre-existing global fucking standard of GSM. Hooray for free market capitalism! :-P

        • The market (Score:5, Insightful)

          by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowar ... .com minus punct> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:45AM (#6849770) Journal
          For some reason you Americans (though eminently logical in most areas) persist in believing that you live in a free market. A free market is one where government does not choose the winners but defines the rules and allows any player to compete. The USA just does not work like this: most significant industries are incredibly regulated, and telecoms is one of these. Energy is another.
          The USA's "free market" is anything but. For a really free market in telecoms, you have to look to countries where there is no anti-competitive parastate monopoly.
          Amazingly, also the countries with the cheapest and often best mobile phone services.

          • Re:The market (Score:3, Informative)

            by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 )
            "The USA just does not work like this: most significant industries are incredibly regulated, and telecoms is one of these. Energy is another."

            Energy and telecoms are regulated out of necessity. It makes sense for one company to run power lines and one company to run phone lines. Having 10 companies compete would be nice, but it is not likely to happen. So regulation is how the industry is kept from price-gouging. The power blackout in New York was caused by a (British owned) power company that neglected up
            • Excellent summary on the state of cellular in the U.S. Very informative and to the point!

              As for the "free market" comments, in general, though - I think the biggest problem comes about when technology begins rendering the old assumptions about industries requiring regulation obsolete.

              Right now, I think the U.S. is in sort of a strange place, where some of the traditionally "unquestioned" regulated monopolies are subject to new questions.

              Telcos were the first to feel this. (The old concept that it just

        • Re:Another feature I don't want/need. (Score:5, Informative)

          by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @10:56AM (#6850254) Homepage Journal
          Get educated. CDMA is much more advanced than the TDMA technology that's in the GSM standard. Besides, you want GSM? Get T-Mobile. You see how easy that is when you have a choice?
          • I'm not that familiar with CDMA, so I cannot comment on it being more advanced, but GSM is a combination of FDMA and TDMA, not only TDMA.

          • This may be true but it's close to meaningless when it comes to the market and quality of coverage. The great debate over CDMA/TDMA/whatever is fun for telco engineers but the public wants to know only:

            1. does it work in my area?
            2. is it reasonably reliable?
            3. is it economical?

            And most of the mobile networks in the USA fail on these grounds for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with technology. I remember trying to use my GSM in the States, frustrated to find that outside the airports and
            • The answer to all three questions you posed is directly affected by the technology chosen. "My coverage stinks! Why don't they add more cell sites?!" The answer could be that the cell sites are already overloaded due to limitations in the GSM standard. Then again, maybe it's just the bean counters trying to find the sweet spot between getting just enough calls through without you getting so fustrated that you cancel your service. We consumers don't know why they don't add more coverage, but that doesn'
            • Europe has a population density of about 200 ppl/sq. km while the US is about 20/sq. km. It makes a big difference.
          • T-Mobile's coverage area will fit in a bee's butt and there will still be room left over for what I know about differential equations.
        • "Yeah, well, some of us live in the US, where we like to Let the Market Decide(TM), and we apparently Decided to get Screwed with crap like CDMA instead of the pre-existing global fucking standard of GSM. Hooray for free market capitalism! :-P"

          GSM has a 16km hard cell-size limit. CDMA cells can be 4 times as large and handle 2 times as many calls. Oh, and it has lower-latency, higher bandwidth data service. And better voice quality.

          Hmmm, so we have a better, more economical, easier to deploy technology, o
      • My Ericsson T68i has 300 hours stand by time and 11 hours talk time. Ha!
        Seriously though, why is the difference so big? I mean, is it because differences between the phone networks or do all american product come with weak batteries?
        • My Ericsson T68i has 300 hours stand by time and 11 hours talk time. Ha!
          Seriously though, why is the difference so big? I mean, is it because differences between the phone networks or do all american product come with weak batteries?

          Two words: Population Density. Europe's is about twice that of the US. This makes it more economical to put up more towers, more towers mean that digital phones are closer and thus broadcast at a lower power than they would if they were just barely on the edge of receptio

        • The batteries are generally the same for the equivalent US and GSM models of phones. The main difference is the amount of power the radio takes.
          • Straight GSM doesn't use much power. Maybe that's related to the population density argument that Rasta Prefect brings up, or that the radio parameters were designed for it, and some of it is the protocol design for keeping track of where users are.
          • The US had Analog cell phones for a decade before GSM was deployed, so the technology is much clunkier and burns
      • It's probably based on a MEMS accelerometer. I'll spare them a direct link (because I'm lazy) but Analog Devices sells 2G and 10G MEMS accelerometers. If you fill out a webform you can get them to send you two or three samples of each.
      • The Itsy (Linux pre-cursor to the IPaq) had an accelerometer hooked to the UI. You could "flip" pages with a flick of the wrist etc.
    • How about 3 day battery life with 6 hours talk time?

      Try the Nokia 6310i [nokia.com]. It may be black and white but it's got Bluetooth, GPRS, HSCSD, Triband, Java and has impressive battery life (both idle and talking). Not to mention the easy to use UI and support for syncing to and from Outlook (tasks, calendar and, most importantly, contacts).

      How about good, clear calls?
      How about not magically losing signal when I walk in to another room?

      If you're in Europe, this sounds like a network provider problem rather t

    • How about good, clear calls?

      I suggest NOT calling poor conversationalists, and dumping Sprint.

    • Not sure if this is a troll but I'll respond anyway.

      How about 3 day battery life with 6 hours talk time?

      I have more than that on my Sprint PCS LG phone that I bought 2 years ago.

      How about good, clear calls?

      Again, I'm on Sprint PCS and am not sure what you're talking about.

      How about not magically losing signal when I walk in to another room?

      Ask your cellphone provider to boost the coverage/signal in your area.

  • Driving on Cell Phones (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:07AM (#6849486)
    "If you have a game involving keeping a car on the road, you do that by tilting,"

    How about you try keeping your car on the road by NOT talking while driving?

  • yippee! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mschoolbus ( 627182 )
    It will probably work just like the damn joystick on my phone... Or the Service (T-Mobile)...

    The way I see it, this whole cell phone thing is really starting to suck.
  • .. about a guy whose car went off the road while he was tilting his mobile trying to keep a virtual car on the road.

  • Palm! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RMH101 ( 636144 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:08AM (#6849498)
    Didn't Palm (sorry, Pa1m!) have a patent a year or so ago about this moving-a-window-on-a-bigger-virtual-screen thing?

  • low viewing angle (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SirLanse ( 625210 )
    Yeah tilt it and you cannot read it anymore. That won't cause more frustration on the highway.

  • Er... (Score:2)

    by Nexum ( 516661 )
    Which 'company spokesman'?

  • Give me a break (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr. Droopy Drawers ( 215436 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:09AM (#6849507)
    It's a Cell Phone...
    No, it's a camera...
    No, it's a video game...
    No, it's a breakfast cerial...

    When I thought of digital convergence, this isn't what I had in mind...

  • Drunk (Score:3, Funny)

    by zeth ( 452280 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:09AM (#6849508) Homepage Journal
    Then I guess using it while being drunk is out of the question.

  • Not all that new (Score:3, Informative)

    by chamenos ( 541447 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:09AM (#6849509)
    the technology used in this case might be more advanced (gyroscope), but the idea of tilting the phone to activate a function or control something isn't new. i had a casio watch many years back that would automatically turn on the backlight for a few seconds if you lifted up your wrist to look at it. i'm not sure this is a good thing though...just one more thing to keep drivers who shouldn't be on the road in the first place distracted.
    • Old stuff indeed, the Microsoft Freestyle Pro gamepad is five years old and has a very similar feature, but instead of a gyro, it uses an acceleration sensor (ADXL202) to sense the angle of the controller relative to the earth's gravitational field. A gyro is actually not a good idea for this kind of control because it can only sense relative rotation angles (i.e. you have no zero point).
    • I've never seen that. Wouldn't the sensor turn on the backlight during the day too? Also, wouldn't it randomly turn it on as you moved around? I would think that such a feature would run the battery down pretty quickly.

  • Cellphone Game (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gykh ( 625487 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:09AM (#6849514) Journal
    If you have a game involving keeping a car on the road
    Thank you but I've had it with people, cell phones and keeping their cars on roads.

    Gits.

  • To turn it off... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PiscoX ( 697783 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:10AM (#6849520) Homepage
    ... just tilt it vigorously against a wall.
    • ... just tilt it vigorously against a wall.

      Yes, that is one option that could work. What I want to know is if the phone is in your pocket and detects that it is spinning will it automatically call 911 for help? Also, if it detects that it is twirling through the air after having just left your hand, does it automatically message your carrier of their inferior service?

  • You WILL like this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:11AM (#6849526)
    But he adds that consumers will have to be convinced that the technology is useful.

    How about stop all the crap 'features' that people have to be convinced are useful, and just get the damn things to work...

    (blissfully, I don't really care, because I remain cellphone anchor-free)

  • Usefull feature? Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ultraw ( 99206 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:13AM (#6849537) Homepage
    Is is only me, but I'm surpised every time some company comes up with some new feature for a cellphone, and they demonstrate it by saying it might come in handy when playing a game? Every new phone is marketeered by saying how much games it has, how much ringtones, how easily you can change the cover,...

    I can't think of a good thing I can do with a phone with a gyroscope in it right now. I assume that anyone can come up with some basic telephone feature that is still missing. One I can come up with is "if busy, present a callback function (Call back in 30 seconds? Yes/No)". Another one is "answer and delete message".

    Oh boy, if only I would design phones...

    • "if busy, present a callback function (Call back in 30 seconds? Yes/No)"

      Don't most phones already do this? My old Ericsson did it automatically, and on a Nokia I think it's under Call settings - Automatic redial

    • The "callback" you refer to is present on any Ericsson phone i've had. When the phone is busy it asks you "User busy. Retry?" and keeps on retrying until it gets a normal signal. It then rings to notify you that a call is being made..

      As for the Gyro.. well it would make a nice McGyver episode, where McGyver uses the cellphone's gyroscope to navigate a broken airplane thus saving hundreds of lives...

    • The average cell phone is already more "usefull" than the average house phone. Cell phone marketers are trying to get those crazy teens with expendable cash to buy their gadgets. They want games! They want pretty colors! They want ringtones! Heck, if I was a teen right now, I'd buy one! (I spent $500 on a discman when I was 16 cuz I thought it was cool. To think, I could've put that in a mutual fund!)
      • I spent $500 on a discman when I was 16 cuz I thought it was cool. To think, I could've put that in a mutual fund!

        If you still have it, sell the discman on eBay. You'll probably get more than the mutual fund would be worth today.

  • Been done before - quick patent it (Score:3, Informative)

    by sr180 ( 700526 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:14AM (#6849542) Journal
    Is it like this [slashdot.org] or this [slashdot.org] or this [slashdot.org] And this goes back to 1999. Ahh but its on a phone now. Quick, I'd better patent it before someone else does. Bah.. Old idea. Just a new application.

  • A solution in search of a problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nutcase ( 86887 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:14AM (#6849547) Homepage Journal
    They keep trying to use this "tilt" technology somewhere. I first saw it at PC Expo several years ago (but before it became "techxNY" or whatever) - It was a SD card add on for a palm V. They were making a big deal out of scrolling maps with it. I demoed it, and tried to be polite about it, but the fact is that it is useless.

    There is much less control in tilting a palm while trying to watch the screen scroll, and then tilting it to level again to read the map - and once you tilt it level, you have to switch the toggle to stop it scrolling if you tilt it up to look at it.

    It reminds me of those games where you have a marble and have to make it fall in the hole in the middle of a big plate - you always overshoot the hole and end up on the other end.

    It's a dumb way to solve a problem that has already been solved via scroll bars and/or buttons.
    • "It reminds me of those games where you have a marble and have to make it fall in the hole in the middle of a big plate - you always overshoot the hole and end up on the other end."

      See, you've come up with a game application yourself! The phones will have an electronic 'marble' game.

      Seriously, I don't see why they suggested the car driving game - the marble game simulator is clearly a better example.
      • +1 Funny.

        Well done. Course, at least in the real world marble game you can see the ball and the hole at the same time. In the Cell Phone virtual one, you can use the large "virtual screen" to see a high resolution recreation of the play area... the fact that you dont know where the hole is half the time only adds to the challenge. :)
    • Microsoft did this years ago with the Sidewinder Freestyle Gamepad. They bundled it with Motocross Madness, probably because it was the only game that played decently with a tilt controller. So maybe they'll make some Java games for that phone that'll play well with a tilt controller or maybe it'll just be the fad that it was on PCs.

    • Now I can finally play Marble Madness on my cell phone!!

  • Bah... (Score:5, Funny)

    by KrunZ ( 247479 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:15AM (#6849559)
    Bah no news... My girlfriend has been tilting the control on our PlayStation for many years now when she do an extra sharp turn in SSX...

  • What I really want.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Crash42 ( 116408 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:17AM (#6849571)
    is a $20 phone with a 200 hours batterylife for making phonecalls. I don't want a $2000 mp3 playing, fm radio, camera, tilt controlled gamecosole, pda, alarmclock thingy wich btw can also be used (if you ever might want to) to make phonecalls...
  • I knew New Scientist covered cutting edge technology, but now they're reporting technology from the future? The date stamp at the top of that article is:

    16:12 18 July 04

    Eddies in the space time continuum again?

  • pro and con (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:18AM (#6849577)
    pros:
    - my seimens phone is now so small I can't reliably grasp it and press keys.. need somethign else to control now (or just return the phones to hand sized)
    - it could standardize some controls (think t9) as opposed to a new set of buttons to think about on every brand

    cons:
    - we have enough gesturing while driving

    - you can't reliably track something that's in motion (try reading a book thaqt you're waving back and forth, then try reading when the book ist still and your head is moving - big difference)

    - i don't want the gyroscopic effect when i'l trying to wrestle with the phone (ok, they'll likely be small) or the dam thing precessing while on my driver's seat...

  • Tilting pie menus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SimHacker ( 180785 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:21AM (#6849600) Homepage Journal
    Here's a cool research paper from Sony's Computer Science Labs, about "tilting pie menus". I love it! I can't wait till all cell phones can sense tilt. Tilt control rocks!

    Tilting Operations for Small Screen Interfaces (Tech Note)
    By Jun Rekimoto [sony.co.jp], Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Inc. www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/papers/uist96.p df [sony.co.jp]

    HTML version from google:

    http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:xf0Rxikgk34J: www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/papers/uist96.p df+tilt+pie+menu&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 [216.239.53.104]

    -Don

  • The downside of tilt control (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:25AM (#6849628) Journal
    So every time someone bumps into me on the train or it jerks on the tracks I'm going to lose my place in a document?
  • worst gadget idea, ever

  • Mercury switch vs Gyroscope? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Koos Baster ( 625091 ) <ghostbustersNO@SPAMxs4all.nl> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:30AM (#6849669)
    IMHO even a very small gyroscope seems pretty impractical wrt. (innertial) forces, size and battery life. How about simply using mercury switches to measure/estimate the cell phone's position?
    • How about simply using mercury switches to measure/estimate the cell phone's position?

      Because mercenaries use them in bombs. Then you'd have Riggs and Murtaugh after you, and you certainly don't want that!


  • This would be fantastic for a game such as the 1984 classic Marble Madness [kinetic-arts.co.uk]
  • The itsy [compaq.com] had one of those a while back one of those Compaq/HP research PDA's that features the "rock'n'scroll" control. Much the same and now quite old.

  • If it's a powerful gyroscope, I can drink enough to fall over, yet stand upright while making a phone call -- !

  • Rotation (Score:5, Informative)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:39AM (#6849733) Homepage
    Also from this months Stuff Magazine [stuffmagazine.co.uk] there is a perview of this phone on the inside back cover. One other funky thing it can do is that if you rotate it 90 degrees it will actually flip the screen orientation

    Rus

  • Pseudo/alternate GPS use? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:40AM (#6849740) Journal
    Could this perhaps be used as a pseudo GPS system? Rather than determining your position by a GPS signal, could have data on gradients of an area and have the PDA in your car in some sort of cradle to hold it flat. Then the PDA would detect when you were going up a hill (the software would have to discount speed bumps) and update your shown position. Provided you kept to the roads, by checking your car's angle it could determine your exact position, at worst it could be used to show were on a contour map you were.
  • I can imagine that tilting the phone would be quite annoying in many lighting conditions. I tend to hold an electronic device in the rare position which doesn't produce glare or reflections, yet fits within a useful reading angle.
  • Now, if the phone would use a 2-axis or even better 3-axis gyro, it could be used for navigation, even in GPS-uncovered areas (buildings...). It's the same principle they use in planes for the so called INS - inertial nav system.

    Just imagine the possibilities of such a navigation system. Finally, there's no more excuse for not finding the office of your PHB in a new building .

  • Why a gyroscope? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pesc ( 147035 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:53AM (#6849819)
    Most modern phones have a camera. Why not just activate it and perform some image processing. Now you can determine how you tilt the phone just by looking through the camera.

    Another nifty thing you could do; if the camera is on the back-side of your phone, you should be able to activate it and use the phone as an optical mouse. Just slide the phone on your desk, and the mouse pointer on the phone screen moves. Cute eh?

    Maybe I should patent this and get rich?
    But now I have already written about it on slashdot. Too late. Damned slashdot, hindering innovation like this!
    • Actually the camera would probably benefit from the gyroscope in the camera as much or more than the user interface does. Some of Canon's better lenses use gyros built into the lenzes to act as Image Stabilizers [canon.com], basically compensating for any motion and shaking of the camera during exposure to improve the picture quality.
    • Most modern phones have a camera. Why not just activate it and perform some image processing. Now you can determine how you tilt the phone just by looking through the camera.

      Get back to me when you have a demo.

  • ..can't you see the interactive applications of tilt/movement of portable devices that also have a vibrating ringtone function.

    I'm just saying it seems the sex trades are the first to jump into new technology. (I'm still waiting for the multi-camera function of DVDs to appear in anything but adult entertainment)

    Did I mention they also have cameras??
  • "Bobby, shaking at damn cellphone when it does not work will not solve any problem."


    "Hey old man, this cell's got a gyro. What do you know?"

  • Been done before (Score:2, Interesting)

    by redNuht ( 213553 )
    Nintendo had a similar engine in Kirby's Tilt 'n' Tumble [gamespot.com] for the Gameboy Color, where the player had to tilt the Gameboy to make Kirby roll. And the gyroscope thing was inside the game cartridge too.

    Too bad the GBA SP loads the cartridges from below, making the game unplayable. :)
  • I think this technology is different than the stuff they've been doing with Palms for a decade now.

    The Palm stuff has all been Accelerometers, which are cheap becuase you need them to control airbags. They can detect change in orientation, but don't really know the orientation of the device, so you tilt and come back to level and have to tell the device it is level again. It might be able to do an OKAY job of knowing it's tilt at a given time, but the sampling rate will eventually make it necessary to hi

  • The gyro is too small... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @10:12AM (#6849976) Homepage
    I want a cell phone with a big honking gyro that resists any attempt to change its orientation in space. When I put it on my belt clip and try to turn a corner, I want it to precess, fall off my belt, hit the ground with the antenna downward, and slowly rotates around in a cone-shaped evolute. I want it to exercise my wrist muscles when I pick it up and clip it on again.

    It would be JUST as useful as that silly tilt control, and a lot cooler.

    I also want it to have flip-out accessories for clipping nails, opening cans, and extracting stones from horse's hooves.

    I've given up on the things ever being reliable ways to make telephone calls.

  • Gyroscope? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @10:13AM (#6849985) Journal
    While this could be done with a gyroscope, that would be an incredible waste of energy (motor+cellphonebatteries=BAD). What I hope they mean is a simple spherical mercury switch.
  • Reading about this story makes one German word in particular spring to mind (no babelfish required either):

    Schadenfreude [reference.com]
  • "If you have a game involving keeping a car on the road..."
    could they make it easier?
  • <clippy>It looks like your plane is crashing. Would you like to call someone and make a dying utterance?</clippy>
  • why bother...I've yet to find any decent games that I wanted to play on my 2' phone screeen thanks.....Heck I can barely use that miniscule screeen to dial much less play a video game....

    So much technology, so many idiots, and still the kids starve in the streets.
  • Thats funny.. "Keep the car on the road by tilting the phone", how about putting the damn phone down and keeping your car on the road by using the steering wheel instead of chatting about what jimmy said to janey, or playing tilting games...

  • To reboot the phone, hold in over your head and shake it back and forth???

    --D
  • From Antic Magazine (December 1982):
    Until recently, no really satisfactory substitute for the Atari joystick has been available. The first alternative was "Le Stick" from DataSoft. Billed as a onehanded joystick, it has internal mercury switches which detect the angle at which it is being held. The "fire" button is mounted on top. Some people like Le Stick, but most find that it is very hard to keep the stick perfectly upright, a position often needed to keep the cursor from moving. A squeezetrigger in Le
  • Great... now we can have crappy control mechanisms on our cell phones. To wit:

    "I love the powerglove... it's so bad!" [x-entertainment.com]
  • What about CRL's "Rock n' Scroll" [compaq.com] interface?

  • I like the old game better... (Score:3, Funny)

    by volkerdi ( 9854 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @03:01PM (#6852451)
    "If you have a game involving keeping a car on the road, you do that by tilting," says company spokesman Jan Ahrenbring.

    It's hard enough to keep my car on the road while blathering on the cellphone, but now I have to tilt, too?

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