Magic trackpad with laser touch

[iveqy]

Hi,
so I happen to know a trackpad that is truly awesome. It looks a bit like the apple magic trackpad but instead of having a conductive sensor it has light sensors in a frame on top of the glas surface, meaning that all kind of different pointing devices are possible to be used. You can even use it with gloves on.

A similar product can be found here http://optapad.com/en/ but that product have hand rests, buttons etc.

I'm curious about what the interest should be of releasing such trackpads, with an open source firmware and hardware design open. You would be able to order it, and then hack away to build a truly ergonomic trackpad of your liking. For example integrate it into a kinesis advantage.

What are your thought? Should a make a massdrop for this? Or perhaps a kickstarter?

[raxander]

I would definitely be interested in something like that.  I was thinking of scavenging an old laptop trackpad and building a case for it.  Ideally I would like to match the angle and aesthetics of one of my 60% cases.  But I haven't had the experience of using a trackpad for a long time, and not sure if I'd end up liking it.  I'd buy one anyway to try it.  I've stayed away from apple magic trackpad though, because I really want something wired rather than bluetooth.

I think most people in this community don't like trackpads though, from what I can tell in the "what input device are you using" threads.  Trackballs and vertical mice seem to be more popular.