Joystick

Dublin-based startup Joyst Instruments is launching a new MIDI controller called the JV-1 next month on Kickstarter that sports a bunch of gamer-style thumb joysticks up top for creating expressive music. Prepare your DAW for battle!

Flying aircraft or spacecraft is tricky in games. Traditional controllers or joysticks can only provide half the puzzle. Now, a small startup called Sublight Dynamics has unveiled a prototype for a one-handed joystick with six degrees of freedom.

Helicopters and planes are steered by joystick-like controllers, so why aren’t drones? Fluidity Technologies is working on just such a controller, with the FT Aviator now on Kickstarter.

Handlebars seem about as important as wheels in bike design, but Swiss inventor Yvan Forclaz has done away with them in favor of a joystick. The Joystick Bike has been tweaked and refined since we first saw it a few years ago, and now it’s almost ready for tinkerers to get their hands on it.

The Lexip 3D mouse is a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster, cobbling together elements of a mouse, joystick and controller into a device that almost gives an unfair advantage in a fast-paced match.

A new modular gamepad allows you to decouple the two sides of a game controller for more natural and ergonomic play. It can also be paired with a mouse, with eight additional buttons mappable to keyboard commands. And three interchangeable grip sizes help people with big or small hands game better.

On the International Space Station, astronauts recently finished putting the European Space Agency's (ESA) Haptics-1 joystick through its paces. The first force-reflecting joystick in space, its purpose is to improve how robots and humans interact in weightlessness.

RR Auctions is putting hundreds of items up for bid as part of an auction of air and space memorabilia ranging from the Wright brothers to the present day. Amongst a number of standout items is the joystick from the Apollo 15 Lunar Module, which goes on the block with a starting bid of US$10,000.

Aiming to streamline computer input commands beyond quick wrist movement and keyboard shortcuts, Eric Charlton, a US-based engineer and founder of Solid Art Labs, has designed the King's Assembly, an input device which allows control over a keyboard, mouse and joystick simultaneously.

X-Arcade is launching the Solo version of its Dual arcade joystick with a new and improved button layout.

Efrat Barit and Saar Shai have announced that the Ringbow is about to enter its first production run, but they've stopped off for a spot of crowd funding en route.

Honda's AC-X plug-in hybrid concept explores under-car shapeshifting, has an autonomous driving mode which does not require the driver to steer, and a new panoramic 3D GPS display.