Innovation Brief: Logitech MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel Page 1
Logitech
Innovation Brief
MicroGear!" Precision
Scroll Wheel and
SmartShift!" Technology
E
xisting methods of on-screen navigation no longer are adequate. Spreadsheets and word-processing documents are growing ever longer, while the number of digital photos and music files stored in hard-drive folders swells. On average, people have six applications open on their computer at any one time, and the active window switches or new windows open every 50 seconds in an eight hour day. To navigate the vast content at their disposal, people spin their mouse s scroll wheel approximately 26 feet in an eight-hour day.
To surmount these challenges, Logitech, the world s leading manufacturer of computer mice,
achieved two breakthroughs in navigation, following more than two years of research. The
MicroGear!" Precision Scroll Wheel allows both free-spin scrolling through thousands of spreadsheet rows, as well as the familiar click-to-click precision scrolling. SmartShift!"
application- and task-sensing technology detects the active application and task at hand,
instantly switching between the two scrolling modes as needed.
Together, these innovations provide computer users with a revolutionary range of scrolling capability, from exacting precision and line-by-line control to silky-smooth, long-distance navigation of the longest documents and file lists imaginable.
MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel
Since its introduction in the mid-1990s to aid vertical navigation within a document, the scroll wheel has been the focus of continuous innovation. At Logitech,
the refinement of click-to-click ratcheting and the replacement of mechanical rotational sensors with high-precision optics boosted scrolling accuracy significantly. Logitech s Tilt Wheel Plus Zoom!"
technology, introduced in 2004, added side-to-side scrolling and zoom-in/zoom-out magnification capabilities, especially well-suited for navigating wide spreadsheets and complex images.
Though side-to-side scrolling and zooming elevated navigation to new heights, these advancements did not directly address the unique challenges posed by documents containing hundreds of pages or spreadsheets with thousands of rows. Similarly, navigating to find a specific music selection in a collection containing thousands of songs, or quickly selecting an individual file from a folder with hundreds of entries, remained problematic.
Logitech s MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel conquers these shortcomings.
A new concept for navigating documents and folders, the MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel operates in two distinct modes. In free-spin mode, the familiar ratchet-scrolling mechanism retracts, allowing the wheel to spin for up to seven seconds, providing hyper-fast, nearly
Innovation Brief: Logitech MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel Page 2
frictionless long-distance scrolling. In its normal click-to-click mode, the wheel allows users to
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