Things come and go over time. Either an upgrade can be made, or something gets made completely obsolete.
This is just an example of how society and technology are always in progress. It can be saddening, knowing that a habit or tool that became a way of your entire life just got left behind because something else has replaced it in all its entirety.
This will continue happening for the rest of the universe’s existence and it is terrifying. It’s uncomfortable enough to think of your life ten years down the road, so imagine fifty, one hundred or even 500 years from now. What will be standing where you are right now?
Technology seems to be the topic that is first talked about when it comes to “the future”.
Computers have been around for some time, and what really changed the game was when computers started to incorporate mice, which were needed for a more sophisticated graphical user interface.
So, since computer mice have been around, we can safely assume that mousepads have been too.
But what’s in store for mousepads in the future?
Glass Mousepads
Glass mousepads have been trending for a bit, but at the same time, they actually haven’t.
What I mean by this is that they have already been around for a while:
In the early days of computers, particularly around the 1980s, it wasn’t uncommon for people to use mousepads made of hard materials like wood, vinyl board cover, leather and yes - glass.
People soon realized that using plain glass was a bad idea because its reflective properties made the mouse not as responsive or function correctly as other materials. The cursor would jump and jitter, and it was just generally much more uncomfortable to use.
Fast forward to now, using hard mousepads, (particularly glass) has made a comeback. Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway have a love for the glass mousepads for whatever reason.
Either way, people have now innovated and made it more enjoyable to use glass mousepads; taking out the troublesome features and making them either opaque or translucent, adding custom designs and making the glass easy for any mouse to glide on.
The benefits of using a glass mousepad include:
- Higher precision
- The mousepad doesn’t lose its shape
- Longer mousepad lifespan
- Better for people who like a firmer feeling
Interactive Mousepads with a Display
In the future, we would likely see mousepads that are able to have a display of some sort. In fact, they may already be here, just highly experimental though.
Even now, it would be fairly straightforward to include a display as part of a glass mousepad, however, this may be impractical taking into account the possibility of wiring and reflection issues for the cursor.
With screens getting thinner, it would not be surprising to see a mousepad that is like your typical fabric type, which contains a flexible screen.
This can open up a whole new world of possibilities, assuming that the display can function as a touchscreen, and have various functions.
A mousepad with a screen could be used as a secondary display, an in-game tool as part of a shooter or even something helpful for artists and designers. The options are endless, and this is something that should have been adopted a long time ago.
Seamless, More Optimized Wireless Charging
Wireless charging in all its forms has been around for a while now, but it hasn’t quite caught on as people have hoped. With phones, people find it impractical to spend more money on something that doesn’t charge as fast and costs more money - not to mention the fact that the heat caused by wireless charging degrades any battery faster.
The future is wireless. It needs to be. Wires are just one of those things that really should be cut out of any piece of technology as soon as possible.
When using a computer mouse, the wired option is still more popular (for gamers at least), because of the lower input delay and the fact that it doesn’t require you to change its batteries or charge it.
Although modern wireless mice can last for a very long time with a few everyday batteries, people still just prefer to stick with a wired option. Then there are the wireless mice that need to get charged with a bulky dock every so often.
Those options just don’t seem overwhelmingly attractive. However, the solution that we might see get used in the future is a wireless charging system that actively charges the mouse as you use it on the mousepad.
A couple of companies have already attempted to do this, but they haven’t had a large sum of positive feedback so far, so hopefully, in the near future, this technology gets mastered.
Conclusion
The future of mousepads looks bright, as there are many ways that we can incorporate some more exciting technology into a piece of fabric that just gets used to make a mouse glide easier.
Interactive and flexible displays, glass mousepads and active wireless charging systems are just a few ideas for the very big and unlimited future.
