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Microsoft Research news : Shift - Pen/Stylus based device navigation and finger navigation May 16, 2007 [mobile PCs (Tablet PC, mini-PC, ...)] | By Edward J. R. Unfortunately this technology has not been released yet for Windows Mobile phones with touch screen but a demo for Windows XP is available so if you have some UMPC with touch screen, you can give it a try! With Shift one can easily select even small elements of the display, what can make usage of the touch screen much more precise: 
Anyway: there is long way from Microsoft Research to Microsoft products, so this technology may never end up in Windows Mobile, but it is good to see that Microsoft, albeit slowly, is working on improvements of mobile device usage... Retrieving the stylus of a pen-based device takes time and requires a second hand. Especially for short, intermittent interactions many users therefore choose to use their bare fingers instead. Although convenient, this increases targeting times and error rates. We argue that the main reason is the occlusion of the target by the user’s finger. We propose a pointing technique we call Shift that is designed to address this issue. When the user touches the screen, Shift creates a callout showing a copy of the occluded screen area and places it in a non-occluded location. The callout also shows a pointer representing the hotspot of the finger. Using this visual feedback, users guide the pointer into the target by moving their finger on the screen surface and commit the target acquisition by lifting the finger. Over large targets, in contrast, no callout is created and users enjoy the full performance of an unaltered touch screen. In our user study, participants acquired targets faster when using Shift than when using the traditional offset cursor technique. To learn more, click here. Credit: Jason Langridge from Microsoft UK.  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later)
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