Apple has been granted a patent for a hybrid low power mouse by the US Patent & Trademark Office.
This invention is made for low power input devices. A mouse is usually a small device that can be moved on a surface to keep track of the screen and to point to any icon on the screen. Earlier most mice were made with mechanical parts integrated to optical emitters and receivers. But with some more advancement in technology mice were made using lasers and were called as optical mouse.
These optical mice had a laser that points light to the surface below. This light is reflected from the surface to a CMOS sensor that sends the data to the DSP. The DSP then calculates the coordinates of the movement and then moves the cursor on the screen.
Further improvements in the technology helped in developing wireless mouse. These used wireless links to get connected to a computer. These wireless links were made using Bluetooth or Infrared technologies. These made the users more mobile as you could now control your computer from a fair distance like while watching movies. The main problem with these devices was that the wireless links was a drain on power and the users has to replace the in-built batteries after every two months on an average.
Therefore what was required was a low power solution. This was the birth of a low power tracking solution from Apple. This included a hybrid computer mouse having both a low power accelerometer that is used in combination with an optical tracking engine to provide velocity with fewer errors.
According to Apple the summary of the invention is:
The invention described herein pertains to a wireless low power tracking device and methods of use thereof. In one embodiment, a method for operating a pointing device in a low power manner is described. The method includes receiving first tracking information from a first tracking device and periodically determining accuracy of the first tracking information. A second tracking device is activated and used to acquire second tracking information when said determining indicates that the accuracy of the first tracking information is inadequate. The first tracking device is substantially lower power device than the second tracking device.
Via: macsimumnews
