There is much talk about multi-touch for both Apple’s OS X and Microsoft’s Windows. While multi-touch screens certainly offers users an improved user experience, it just isn’t feasible to use a touch screen in all situations. Sure, there are applications where a multi-touch screen makes sense, such as gaming, kiosks, etc., but in the most common situations such as at a desk at work or at home, it would be a rather terrible user experience to have to move between a keyboard, mouse and the touch screen.

This doesn’t mean multi-touch is only reserved for certain applications. The opposite – multi-touch will completely change how we interact with computers. The mouse as a pointing device will be replaced by devices with functionality similar to the touch pads integrated in laptops.

At Sima, we’re envisioning a device that is similar to a mouse pad in look and feel. It’s made out of a flexible material that allows it to be placed on non-flat surfaces. The functionality of the pad would include:

• Controlling the mouse by moving a finger on the pad
• Replace right/left mouse clicks by either tapping a second finger, or applying pressure to the pad with the “mouse finger”
• Gesture recognition (zoom in/out, scroll vertically/horizontally, etc.)
• Use any stylus to input handwriting

We believe this will be the natural peripheral input device for Macs and PCs. This device makes it possible to upgrade any [modern] PC to Windows 7 and utilize the integrated multi-touch functionality. 

This unique type of device can be built today using Sima’s resistive multi-touch technology