I was testing my Internet connection just now and ended up at a Microsoft mouse web page. It was about their horizontal scroll technology. Basically it is a mouse with a scoll wheel where the scroll wheel can be pushed left and right to scroll horizontally as well as scrolling vertically by rolling the wheel. I watched a little demo for it and was bemused by their actions.
Horizontal scroll wheel movement is not new. In fact many years ago I saw an ad for a mouse that actually had TWO scroll wheels in it; one to scroll vertically and one to scroll horizontally. Unfortunately the horizontal scroll wheel was mounted vertically beside—and shifted slightly down from—the other one.
The thing that I cannot figure out is why they keep using wheels. If people want to be able to scroll in all directions with their mouse then why does someone not step up and take the wheel out altogether and replace it with a small trackball? That would be one heck of a useful input device; A MOUSE WITH A BUILT IN TRACKBALL. You could then do all kinds of crazy things. Of course there is always the fact that with a trackball it is difficult to scroll perfectly in line like it is hard to move the mouse perfectly to the left or up or down or to the right. I’m sure however that with the right programming this would not be a problem and that there are in fact some of these already out there. However, Logitech needs to get around to doing it to get others to see the light.