back to article Fujitsu: Slide your fingertip through our ring piece and show mice the finger

Fujitsu Laboratories has unveiled what it thinks is the control system of the future: a smart ring to replace the keyboard and mouse so many of us are slaves to. The 10g (0.35oz) ring contains a near-field communications (NFC) module, low-power Bluetooth, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and other sensors to track the motion of …

  1. stuartnz
    Thumb Down

    Nothing sinister about this at all

    And I mean that literally - the design as shown does not seem very friendly to left-handers. I hope they will release one that can be used on either hand.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RSI

    Looking forward to the end of complaints about "mouse wrist" and the start of complaints about "ring thumb". At least it seemed to me rather awkward to hit that side button using my thumb!

  3. JohnnyGStrings

    This has to be the best Reg headline EVER.

  4. Jan 0 Silver badge

    Make Fujitsu Engineers weep!

    Somebody send a Leap Motion to Fujitsu.

    Let them use all their fingers. Besides, this looks as if it's made of Christmas cracker plastic.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A solution looking for a problem

    Who is going to be the first twat that sits at a desk waving their finger about like a demented conductor. Also what happens when you scratch an itch and all you work disappears into a black hole.

    If anything this is much, much more stupid than people wearing google glass headsets.

    1. Crazy Operations Guy

      Re: A solution looking for a problem

      Not if they are using both since this thing could work with HUDs (like the glass)

  6. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    Ring-a-ding-ding

    The device can replace a mouse – waving your finger while wearing the ring can move a pointer on a monitor or heads-up display – and it can be used to write text by drawing letters with your digit.

    So, it is basically a wearable stylus, then? It sounds interesting, but not a real game changer. It certainly won't replace a keyboard or keyboards would already be a thing of the past. While non-alphabet languages might do better with something like this, I cannot imagine this would speed up input for someone in comparison. Better speech recognition might.

    Now, if it could give us the giant holographic screens that magically interpret the motions of users based on intent that we see in so many Hollywood-style works, then we would be cooking with gas.

    1. P. Lee

      Re: Ring-a-ding-ding

      > Now, if it could give us the giant holographic screens that magically interpret the motions of users based on intent that we see in so many Hollywood-style works, then we would be cooking with gas.

      That's far too energetic! My mouse only moves an inch and a half across the whole screen.

  7. Barry Rueger

    Fu-who?

    Am I alone in reading this and saying,"Fujitsu? They're still around?"

    My first laptop was a Fujitsu, a real tank, running a 486 chip as I recall, but I can't recall seeing a Fujitsu product since then.

    But apparently they're still going strong!

    1. Major Ebaneezer Wanktrollop

      Re: Fu-who?

      Fujitsu have been huge in enterprise-class IT infrastructure solutions and services for many years - they never went away.

      Look at any large scale contract our Government has handed out over the last 20 years or so and you won't be too far from Fujitsu - or Utter Failure for that matter.

  8. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Nope

    I can possibly see it as a pointer, but the idea of 'drawing' characters...

    Not only would it be a lot slower, but waving your hand around in the air for any length of time is going to get tiring pretty quickly.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I want one

    It might be useful for the Pre-Crime department I'm setting up.

    1. tony2heads
      Joke

      Re: I want one

      I knew you were going to say that

  10. james 68

    Second raters

    Knew I had seen this before - and in a much better looking form.

    Right here.

    Time to sit back and wait for the lawsuits to start flying, did anyone bring popcorn?

    1. no-one in particular

      Re: Second raters

      And

      https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcut-everything

    2. Pirate Dave Silver badge

      Re: Second raters

      that thing looks like a miniature Lelo Tor 2.

  11. Cuddles

    "A" button

    So no, it can't replace a mouse. And that's before you even start thinking about how incredibly inaccurate waving an accelerometer around is compared to even an old ball mouse, let alone a modern laser one.

  12. Alister

    So, One ring to rule them all...

    ...then?

  13. PaulusTheGrey

    RE: Second raters.

    Looks better too - not as clunky... or pink!

  14. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

    Sketch-based input methods

    Sketching characters can be a useful input method for some use cases. Palm's Graffiti was popular, though swipe-style touch keyboards seem to offer better performance for most users. (I'm not a fan of touchscreen input myself, but clearly it works for many.)

    For logographic langauges, as some posters have already noted, sketch input can be quite useful - potentially significantly faster than keyboard input. Anyone who's used a keyboard to write in a logographic or partly-logographic written language - I've done some Japanese - knows that while there are various methods, they're not ideal.1

    But that said, touch devices, whether used with fingertip or stylus, seem more plausible for any extended sketch input than accelerometers. I can't see this replacing existing input devices for most uses. And for alphabetic languages, there's no way character-sketching will ever come close to rivaling input speed and accuracy for experienced users.

    1The context-sensitive "guess the kanji from a phonetic spelling and offer a list of alternatives if it's wrong" one I used was pretty nifty, but tended to interrupt the flow of writing and would probably have become quite annoying after a few hours.

  15. Mez68

    Reg has the best headlines

    Another fantastic headline Messrs Reg! Almost as good as your recent "The Apple Watch: THROBBING STRAP-ON with a knurled knob".

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like