Shift Allows to Use Fingertips Instead of Stylus on PDA Screen

Using a mouse to activate a PDA? Who heard of such a thing?

Research being done at Microsoft doesn't go that far, but it does approximate the sensation. A team of researchers in Redmond has come up with a set of routines called Shift, which allow a user to use his or her finger as a mouse on a PDA screen, selecting an area of interest, creating a pop-up window, and then activating the targeted content—all things that you would normally do with a stylus. It's the kind of thing that iPhone users might either have or with they had in the next sevral months and years.


This sort of technology lends itself naturally to tasks like navigating using onscreen maps and paging your way through a computerized phonebook. Conceivably, one could also manipulate words and numbers in word processing programs and spreadsheets and even manipulate images in graphics software as well.

Shift is still in the experimental stages, but Microsoft hopes to able to bring it into reality in the not-too-distant future. Who says they're out of touch?




Written by Annie Groer
Published in Other Tech