Accessibility-ready themes: Supportive of screen readers, keyboard, voice and alternate input, colorblindness, and cognitive impairments.
Alternate input methods like trackpad gestures (like those used by Apple hardware and software) and touchscreen navigation (available on some new Windows 8 machines) may help get you off the mouse.
When does a keyboard qualify as an "alternate input device"?
The mouse is the original "alternate input device".
Most major games are difficult or impossible to play without alternate input systems and apps like Windows are marginally useful.
Most immediately, it would offer Glass an alternate input method that wouldn't require users to employ their hands or voice at all.
The 3DRudder began its peculiar life as a foot-powered mouse, designed by an architectural student looking for an alternate input for created designed in CAD programs.
Other uses for the patent, which was originally filed in 2009, are described by Apple as a backup or alternate input method for when standard capacitive-based touch interaction either won't work or is impractical.
There's something about the mundane-sounding world of "alternate input devices" that makes for creativity, fostering everything from the notebook pointing-stick to steering wheels and joysticks that fight back.
