Trackball Pointing Device

Essentially, a trackball is a mouse lying on its back. To move the pointer, you rotate the ball with your thumb, your fingers, or the palm of your hand. There are usually one to three buttons next to the ball, which you use just like mouse buttons. The advantage of trackballs over mice is that the trackballs stationary so it does not require much space to use it. In addition, you can place a trackball on any type of surface, including your lap. For both these reasons, trackballs are popular pointing devices for portable computers.

A trackball is a specific style of computer mouse that allows the user to keep their hand and arm in one place, while manipulating a ball that moves the on-screen pointer. The computer mouse is a critical element to any home or office PC (personal computer) set up. The mouse provides the user a way to move the pointer on the computer screen to the desired location, as well as the means to select an object. Used in all applications from office software to gaming and web surfing, mouse comfort and ease of use is paramount.

A device capable of recording hand movements, both the position of the hand and its orientation as well as finger movements; it is capable of simple gesture recognition and general tracking of three-dimensional hand orientation. A glove equipped with sensors that sense the movements of the hand andinterfaces those movements with a computer. Data gloves are commonly used in virtual reality environments where

the user sees an image of the data glove and can manipulate the movements of the virtual environment using the glove.

Refers to the sharpness and clarity of an image. The term is most often used to describe monitors, printers, and bit-mapped graphic images. In the case ofdot-matrix and laser printers, the resolution indicates the number of dots per inch. For example, a 300-dpi (dots per inch) printer is one that is capable of printing 300 distinct dots in a line 1 inch long. This means it can print 90,000 dots per square inch. For graphics monitors, the screen resolution signifies the number of dots (pixels) on the entire screen. For example, a 640-by-480 pixel screen is capable of displaying 640 distinct dots on each of 480 lines, or about 300,000 pixels. This translates into different dpi measurements depending on the size of the screen. For example, a 15-inch VGA monitor (640x480) displays about 50 dots per inch. Printers, monitors, scanners, and other I/O devices are often classified ashigh resolution, medium resolution, or low resolution. The actual resolution ranges for each of these grades is constantly shifting as the technology improves.