Touchscreen Devices and Gloves Don't Mix — or Do They?

Simon Mackie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:00:06 +0000

Winter has definitely arrived here in the UK, with temperatures dropping over the past week or so, prompting me to break out my winter coat and gloves. I actually quite enjoy the changing seasons, but gloves are awkward because they don’t work with devices with capacitive touchscreens (like my iPhone, and also the trackpad on my MacBook), and constantly removing and replacing gloves when fiddling with my phone quickly becomes annoying. Fortunately, I’ve found there are quite are a few workarounds that let you keep warm mitts and stay connected on the go.

Use fingerless gloves. Any style of fingerless gloves will obviously work, but the Etre Touchy gloves I added to my inexpensive gift guide look particularly good, and because they are only missing thumb and index fingertips, your hands will stay a little warmer than full fingerless gloves. If you don’t like the idea of having exposed fingertips at all, then maybe convertible glove mittens are the answer — to answer a call or check email you’d just need to flip back the mitten top.
Use a stylus. You can buy relatively inexpensive styluses to use with touchscreen devices. (Here’s one specifically for the iPhone, for example.) It’s important to use a stylus that won’t scratch the screen over time. If you don’t want to pay for a dedicated stylus or happen to lose yours, Lifehacker provides this clever trick: Use the negative (flat) end of an AAA battery. Because the end of the battery is smooth it won’t scratch your screen, and exhausted batteries work just as well as fresh ones — it works well, as you can see in the photo at the top of this post.
Use conductive gloves. You can buy gloves specifically made to work with touchscreen devices — these Dots Gloves have special conductive pads on the the tips of the thumb and three fingers, and aren’t overly expensive (ranging from $15 to $25 per pair — they appear to be popular as many sizes are currently sold out). There are also these PlayPoint gloves. However, if you don’t want to shell out for special gloves, you can also make your existing gloves work with touchscreens by sewing conductive thread into the fingertips, and it’s easy to do — there’s a tutorial on how to do it over on Instructibles.

Do you have any other workarounds for using gloves with touchscreen devices? Share them below!

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Getting Green About Work Meetings

Aliza Sherman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:00:05 +0000

I’ve always known there was a good reason why I worked from home in terms of the impact on my quality of life and the impact on my family.

But I have to admit, I feel a little bit overwhelmed analyzing the impact of my telecommuting or the impact of anything I do day-to-day on the planet. Luckily, it turns out I’m helping to save the world by working from home. At least according to the iLinc Web conferencing software.

iLinc announced their “Green Meter” to provide companies with a tool to measure the “environmental ROI” of Web conferencing – real time carbon emissions savings. The patent pending feature calculates the “standard emission rates” for cars or planes based on where each participant in the Web conference are located. How does it do this, you ask?

The meter takes the IP address of each attendee in the conferencing session, combines it with the host’s location, and then attributes longitude and latitude coordinates for each person. Next, it compares participant location to host location. If the participant were at the same location as the host, for example, the CO2 savings would be zero. If the distance between participant and host is under 200 miles, the meter calculates based on the C02 emissions of driving a car the distance. Over 200 miles, the meter calculates the emissions of flying, distinguishing between short and longer flights.

Finally, the iLinc Green Meter tallies C)2 amounts for each participant, storing the data for every Web conferencing session. Each participant can see his or her impact on the environment. A company can monitor the impact of a team or of their entire organization. iLinc claims that their customers reduced their impact by over one billion pounds of carbon emissions as of August 2007.

Next month, iLinc will unveil their next-generation iLinc Green Meter that will not only measure carbon savings but also “the monetary impact of replacing travel with online collaboration.” They’ll help companies put a dollar amount to measure their overall savings.

What is the impact of traveling to a meeting? According to the company’s press release:

A company can significantly reduce its CO2 emissions. As an example, a single roundtrip flight between NYC and LA emits 2,000 pounds of CO2. That’s 2 months worth of emissions from a full-size car alone.

iLinc CEO James M. Powers says he devised the idea for the Green Meter after lunching with former Vice President Al Gore, a family friend. How’s that for inspiration?

Linc’s Green Meter comes standard with iLinc version 9.0.

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Touchscreen Devices and Gloves Don't Mix — or Do They?

Getting Green About Work Meetings