A high-tech mouse for your living room: The Loop to be released by

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 15, 2009 by Maria Zilberman

There is a mouse in the living room, and it's called The Loop.

Made for your television, The Loop was scheduled to be released Monday and is the first product that Rockville-based Hillcrest Laboratories Inc., a software and information technology program licensing company, is selling directly to consumers.

The $99 device plugs into a computer's USB port and is targeted toward individuals who connect their computer to a television. Once connected, the four buttons and scroll wheel of the shiny black doughnut-shaped device take pointing to the big screen.

The company chose to release the product directly because of the number of people connecting their computers to televisions and the abundance of Internet video content, said Chad Lucien, Hillcrest's vice president of Freespace products and corporate strategy. According to a Consumer Electronics Association report, more than 7 million U.S. households are connecting their computers to televisions.

"We've already got the design," Lucien said. "We've perfected it for five years. It only made sense to take it to market."

Unlike a traditional computer mouse, The Loop uses Hillcrest's Freespace technology, allowing it to be held in the air in any position, with the cursor responding to movements of the user's wrist. It also does not require a line of sight with the computer or television screen.

However, this release is not the first commercial use of Freespace -- that was in 2007, with the launch of Logitech's MX Air, a computer mouse that can operate off the table and in the user's hand.

The Freespace technology has advanced in the two years since Logitech's launch of the MX Air, and The Loop is geared toward making television viewing of computer media and entertainment more comfortable, said Lucien. It can also be used for presentations, allowing speakers to click through slides and launch videos without having to stand over a computer, he said.

People's desire to control their televisions by pointing is evident in the advances in video games, said James McQuivey, principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc., a research and consulting company specializing in business and technology.

"People want to be able to point at things. Whether it's Logitech's version or The Loop, both take advantage of that natural desire," said McQuivey, adding that Forrester Research estimates 19.9 million households are connecting their computers to televisions, a number that includes the occasional connector.

The desire to point is something that Nintendo tapped into with the manufacturing of its Wiimote, a controller for the gaming device. A lawsuit filed by Hillcrest against Nintendo in August 2008 for alleged patent violations regarding the Wiimote has not been resolved.

While he acknowledged that controlling a computer from the comfort of your couch sounds appealing, Josh Martin, senior analyst at the Yankee Group Inc., a technology research and consulting firm, expressed doubts about consumers' interest in the product and said the real key to success for Hillcrest will be in appealing to cable set-top box creators.

"Hopefully, what this is, is a foray for Hillcrest Labs to say to their partners that consumers want to be able to access media in a new way," he said.

In April 2008, Hillcrest announced it had licensed its Freespace technology and HoME software platform, an interactive media system that navigates using graphics, to ZillionTV Corp., which is developing a service to allow users to stream movies and television on demand using an Internet connection. According to the company's Web site, the service is only available as a field trial.