Microsoft BLUETRACK Mouse: Microsoft Explorer Mouse and Mini Mouse
After several weeks of teasing on Internet sites, Microsoft lifted the veil earlier this month on its new technology to BLUETRACK mice. The hardware division of software giant has developed a new optical tracking system succeeding laser technology, with the number one advantage to ensure the functioning of its mouse on a wider variety of surfaces.
At new generation of optical sensor Microsoft is launching two new mouse: the Mouse Microsoft Explorer and Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse. If the first is a rechargeable wireless mouse for desktops, the second was designed for laptops while benefiting both naturally sensor technology with BLUETRACK. In the following lines we will show you BLUETRACK technology, its implementation and the first two mice who benefit. What finally acknowledges the laser?
Microsoft BLUETRACK
Investigator of the first optical mouse sensor, the hardware division of Microsoft is known and famous for the many innovations it could introduce into the world of devices. All may not have had the desired success, but we will anyway that Microsoft was the first to propose a mouse-ball, with optical sensor, therefore, when he was also the first to integrate a wheel on its mouse before making the wheel multi-directional. BLUETRACK technology, developing for 18 months at Microsoft, is part of this long series of innovations and if the decline is still lacking whether BLUETRACK will actually date in the annals of science, technology still has some advantages.
With BLUETRACK, the main idea is to replace the illumination laser mice present a wider beam and confessed in order to illuminate the surface Sliding more important. By expanding the beam, Microsoft ensures that the light bounces on the surface will be more numerous, especially if the area in question contains roughness (as a rug or carpet for example). According to tests conducted by Microsoft, technology BLUETRACK, which remains for the time owner, ensures operation of the mouse on difficult surfaces such as wood, granite, marble and carpet or rugs.
Questioned the choice of color beam illumination, a blue LED beam, Depue Mark, an engineer at Microsoft, replied that blue is one color that offers the best contrast with a much lower noise monitoring movements as precise as possible. And to insist on uniform illumination because the Microsoft engineers have made numerous efforts to ensure that the light intensity is the same across the width of the beam to avoid areas brighter than others. In addition, the blue illumination would be less sensitive to dust than traditional laser illumination.
For the rest, technology BLUETRACK is structured in the traditional way with a light source, we discussed the merits, and a sensor connected to a specular type wide-angle. Here, Microsoft indicates that the use of a wide angle can always obtain images of the surface net on the contrary used in optical mice, which can sometimes produce blurred images. To summarize the operation of BLUETRACK, the blue LED illuminates the surface and bounce of this illumination is recorded by a sensor placed behind the perspective that we talked to the moment. Each second more images of the surface is taken and analyzed by the sensor and differences between the images reflected by a shift equivalent pointer. The sensor in question was developed by Microsoft in its laboratories in Fort Collins: This is a CMOS chip of the fourth generation that allows the mouse to achieve an optical resolution of 1 000 dpi, at least on Explorer models Mouse and Mini Mouse Explorer that we are here.
