I can move my computor mouse without touching it! How?

Not sure if this is the right thread, so MODS feel free to move if needed.

Okay, the mouse I'm talking about is the touch pad on my laptop. I've had this happen on several occasions on serveral different brands and styles of laptops.

What happens is I will use the touch pad then ever-so-slightly lift my finger off the pad while Im looking at whatever it is Im looking at on the computor. with out noticing I would be slightly moving my finger without feeling that I was touching the mouse pad and the curser on the screen would be following. Well today I did it again but this time a friend was in my office and I ask him to assist me. I asked him to lean down and look to see if my finger was touching the mouse pad when I moved it. He confirmed it was NOT touching.

So here I am, asking my ATS brothers and sisters what they think.

personally I think it may have to do with some sort of static charge on my finger that still has some type of "connection" to the mouse pad. But like I said, I dont know, hopefully you can shed some light on whats going on here.



ETA: I dont think I'm special. Try it yourself: Frist use your laptop mouse pad then very slightly move your figer off the pad and move your finger around. I bet it will work for you too.

Done that before. It's the static electricity.

How do you think the pad senses and tracks your finger?

Oh yeah,

I know, Picutures or it didnt happen blah blah blah.

Im not here on ATS to hoax people for my own amusment I hate that [snip] when people do that.
Maybe I can get a video of it happening. I'll see what I can do.

reply to post by Talltexxxan

Yea this is in how the touch pad works. If I even have a part of my palm hovering over one corner of the pad and try to move the mouse it ends up zooming the screen thinking I am using multi touch.

Originally posted by Starchild23
Done that before. It's the static electricity.

How do you think the pad senses and tracks your finger?

So it is static electricity? like I said , thats what I thought, but I'm definetly no computer guy.

That is wicked, but what exatly is a computor mouse?

reply to post by Talltexxxan

Synaptics products are based on capacitive sensing technology. Capacitive touch sensing works by sensing the electrical properties of the finger(s) touching the sensor. Whereas the resistive touchscreen senses direct pressure between two clear electrical layers that are separated by a small space, requiring an amount of force.[4] Capacitive touch sensing solutions are solid state making them more robust than resistive solutions.

Source wiki
Time to wear less nylon or spandex maybe?

reply to post by Talltexxxan


Touchpads operate in one of several ways, including capacitive sensing and conductance sensing. The most common technology used as of 2010 entails sensing the capacitive virtual ground effect of a finger, or the capacitance between sensors. Capacitance-based touchpads will not sense the tip of a pencil or other similar implement. Gloved fingers may also be problematic.

Conductance sensing is what is going on here OP. Not really static electricity but close.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by michael1983l
That is wicked, but what exatly is a computor mouse?

Whaa? You better locate it and feed it or it will die on you!
I let mine run around in a wheel a little while everyday. Makes it feel like it's going somewhere.

I wonder if you could build up a lage enough static charge to be able to move the curser around with your finger a few inches from the pad?

Could be a cool way to win some money betting people you have 'magical' powers.

Well we could take it one step further.
Check this out!

reply to post by Talltexxxan


As someone posted above, the effect is caused by capacitance and not static electricity.

Somewhere under the mouse pad, an oscillating electrical field is produced. As this field blows past a sensor capacitor, a slight delay in the measured field indicates the total capacitance. When a conductor (conducting at the frequency of the oscillation, like your finger) is brought near but doesn't touch the capacitor terminals, it modifies the total capacitance of the sensor and therefore changes the storage delay of the sensor.

So your finger modifies the oscillating electrical field around the sensor and that's what is detected.

Static (which is a large DC voltage offset) should not be "sensed" at all with this setup.

This has just started to happen to me.

But I am finding if I think of closing a tab and I move the cursor over the X to close BUT DELAY and daydream a milli second, I have been closing the page WITHOUT touching the mousepad!!

And I have been turning the TV on, using the remote control but NOT TOUCHING the remote control.
Bl***y annoying.

I have been taking photos on my touch screen camera on my phone, when I think 'nice picture' WITHOUT touching the screen button. Again Bl****y annoying.

Why can't I move stuff ie. Telekinesis, like bringing the remote when it is on the other side of the room and other more practical abilities?

I can confirm, this happened to me on a Samsung net book, first time freaked me out.