Is Horse the New Mouse? 349
lopati writes "Europhysics News writes about a new ergonomical mouse called Horse (jpeg) that reduces repetitive stress injuries by allowing 'the three middle fingers to adopt a flexed position to relax the tendons' and including a thumb scrool [sic:] wheel. Just a few simple changes for so much more comfort!"
What's a [sic]?? (Score:1, Interesting)
New hardware (Score:2, Interesting)
Kinda like my logitech (Score:5, Interesting)
Alternative placement on a normal mouse. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or a free Nintendo DS [freegamingsystems.com]
Wired article as proof [wired.com]
Help with (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I kind of like it, I can kind of tell the difference with the tendons, but I'm not sure how well it would react in uses where your moving your hand a lot now that the center of where your pressing on the input device (no longer can you just call it a mouse...) seems to be more toward the wrist, so forward or side to side movements would require more effort or at least leverage. Would be interesting to try it out though.
Re:Kinda like my logitech (Score:2, Interesting)
Funny enough, this sort of comfortable 'loose grip' on the mouse is great in FPS games. You'd be surprised the amount of control gained from the standard and limiting flopping the hand on the mouse. It works well enough for me with my mx510 and mx700.
Re:Kinda like my logitech (Score:3, Interesting)
By contrast, the horse appears to have changed the thumb-groove so its more of a shelf, giving more support and allowing the hand to rest at most any point along it. Also, the image implies that the scroll wheel may be moved there, making it easy to use while the fingers are extremely far forward. It would be even easier to use if the scroll-wheel were at the center of a rocker, as on the MX-1000.
Re:Stupid article... (Score:2, Interesting)
What was your point again?
Mouse shape not the problem (Score:4, Interesting)
The most fatiguing aspect my own mousing is wrist-related. While you're using a mouse, your arm is just sort of hanging out there, putting a lot of stress on your wrist.
Think about it, in order to use your mouse, you MUST hold your elbow above the desk the whole time.
Some work has been done to alleviate wrist strain by adding those gel wrist pads, but I think what we really need to see is another pad further back to support your forearm.
The actual standard mouse shape itself is pretty good.
Try this:
Put your hand on your mouse.
Allow it to rotate to a comfortable angle. (For me about 10 deg CCW.)
Freeze your hand and wrist in that position, lift your hand up and look at it.
For me, the result is a very natural even spacing between all my fingers, almost the same you would see if let your arm go limp at your side.
IMO, workstations need more forearm support, not a different-shaped mouse. Take writing for example, you typically rest not just your wrist, but your whole arm on the paper as you write.
Re:New hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
I love my split keyboard, and the majority of my MS-oriented professional developer friends all use the split keyboard as well. I was having some my wrist fatigue a couple years ago, but it has disappeared since switching to the more ergonomic keyboard. I'm sure they're not good for everyone, but I am extremely grateful that somebody produces them.
Regarding your main point, slightly improved keyboards and mouses are never going to revolutionize anything. For a revolution, an entirely new input device will be needed.
Re:This isnt so good but is an option (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What is so new? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:THis mouse solvedall my problems. (Score:2, Interesting)
http://store.ergocube.com/evvermous.html [ergocube.com]
Re:Stupid article... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stupid article... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm left handed, and use my mouse with my left hand, even going so far as to reverse the buttons (which is easier than making a hand cursor showing an obscene gesture).
I can use other people's computers reasonably well, but anyone who tries to use mine invariably pulls the mouse to the right side of the keyboard, then gives up after 10 seconds of making the context menu appear wherever they click.
Re:New hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to suspect the reduction in fatigue is due to a placebo effect. The split keyboards really put more stress on your wrists in most cases, and they are usually more inclined than a typical keyboard, which is the exact opposite of what you want to reduce stress. Perhaps it's not placebo, perhaps you've started using something else about the same time, such as an elevated wrist wrest, which was the real cause of the stress reduction.
There are REAL ergonomic keyboards out there, and they aren't of the split MS variety...
Kensington Expert Mouse does this somewhat already (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a large trackball (the size of a billiard ball), and your three middle fingers do curve over it to reach the buttons during normal use. It does have a thumb scrollwheel, going around the circumference of the trackball! This is a very handy feature, and lets you dial through pages extremely fast (faster than you could wiggle your middle finger using an ordinary mouse wheel). It's optical, so it's precise and doesn't have the sticky-wheels problem older trackballs used to have.
Disadvantages:
* No place to rest a wrist (the provided wrist rest is a small little joke). A folded-up old sock fixes this.
* Dodgy Windows driver [kensington.com]. (It's marked as "beta", but really is the only choice, since the officially released driver is absolutely ancient.) It really hates my switchbox, and doesn't have any way of regaining synchronization short of rebooting the machine. Works fine in Linux, though, but all the buttons aren't recognized (there are 4 buttons).
* The trackball doesn't track fast enough when rolled at high speed, making it useless for certain applications [klov.com].
Still, I like it because it does fit my fingers better, and has some of the advantages of this new "horse" mouse.