Kickstarting a clever, tiny wireless mouse/presentation controller designed for tight spaces

I am addicted to Thinkpads in large part because of the trackpoint (AKA "The Nipple") -- the little wiggly joystickbetween the G, H and B keys that allows me to control fine mouse-movements without bending my hand into the RSI-inducing trackpad position; between that and the amazing, best-in-class warranties, I am a committed Thinkpad user, to the point that I actually bought and returned three different systems this year because (between the new Intel chipset and the new Nvidia cards), I couldn't get any flavor of GNU/Linux to run on them (many thanks to Canonical for eventually getting me running on a Thinkpad extreme).

Now there's an alternative to the trackpoint, confusingly named the Tracpoint, which is being kickstarted as we speak. It's a tiny wireless trackball/mouse designed to be used in very tight spaces like the backs of taxis and tiny airplane seats, and it also works as a wireless presentation clicker to advance your slides.

They're three-button, only weigh 24g, project a built-in spotlight, and run for one hour on a 60-second charge. There's Mac/Win (but not GNU/Linux) software that lets you program custom gestures.

The campaign comes from Swiftpoint, who've run multiple successful crowdfunders for hardware, making them a good bet for fulfilling orders. They're $89 for limited earlybird purchases, $99 full price, and $188 for two-packs. I ordered one.

TRACPOINT - TRAVEL MOUSE and PRESENTER [Swiftpoint/Kickstarter]

(via Four Short Links)