The new input device slides onto one of your hands
and doubles up as a mouse
Give your mouse and
keyboard a wearable twist
Mixed and virtual
reality may immerse you in a new environment. But it takes away some of the
control options we are used to when sitting at a PC. One of those is access to
a keyboard and the mouse. Typically, VR experiences require the use of a slow
virtual keyboard, but Tap Systems knew there was a better way and spent the
last two years designing a wearable keyboard and mouse.
The resulting Tap device slides over your fingers and
is worn like a set of five rings. To type, you simply type. The device picks up
which fingers are tapping and in what order to produce the desired characters.
There’s a system to learn to access all characters, but it seems simple to pick
up. There’s also TapMapper, which allows custom layouts to be created.
Mouse mode is activated by placing the thumb ring on
a surface and keeping it there. Moving your hand around then moves the mouse
pointer while your index and middle fingers can tap for left and right mouse
button presses. Drag and drop and scrolling are also supported with other
finger tap combos.
A Bluetooth 4.0+ connection ensures you can use Tap
to type on just about any devices, meaning your laptop, smartphone, PC, VR,
mixed reality, augmented reality, tablets, and smart TVs should all work out of
the box. It’s also multilingual, can provide eight hours of tapping between
recharges (seven days on standby), and is compatible with iOS 9+, Android 5+,
OS X Yosemite+, Windows 8.1+, and Ubuntu.
It’s priced at $179 and fills a gap in the market for
virtual reality especially. It could certainly find wider appeal,though,
because having a way to fast type and move a mouse around simply by wearing
some rings sounds quite appealing.
in.pcmag.com
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