BT has been working on a motion detecting tablet PC, and here it is in prototype form: the Balance. It doesn’t have a mouse, and nor does it have a tiny keyboard that only a mouse can use. Instead, it detects the speed and direction of motions, and is programmable so that different motion patterns can cause different results. For example, moving from left to right might move the cursor, while rapidly moving up and down might open a file.
It sounds fraught with problems to me – imagine trying to use it on a moving train, for example, or what disasters might ensue when you leave it on in your handbag and it spends all day moving up, down, left and right to its heart’s content. And just imagine the sight in a serious business meeting when everyone gets out their Balance tablets and starts waving their arms around to try to check their diaries.
But it’s more than the businessman’s Wii. There is good potential here for movement-impaired people who can’t use traditional input methods on regular computers. It’s still in prototype form and I hope that by the time it’s on the market, they’ve worked out a solution for the looking-ridiculous-while-using-it thing.
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