The Cursor, My Friend, Is Blowin' In The Wind

I'm going to pretend I came up with this idea in order to help disabled people who physically can't use a mouse, rather than expose the depths of my own laziness by revealing that sometimes I can't be arsed pushing a wee bit of plastic around my desk for hours on end.

So, for the ultimate in hands-free computing, I'd like to be able to literally blow the cursor about the screen. Like a wind-blown leaf it would arc and glide across the monitor, with only a couple of artfully-aimed puffs impelling it. A more laid-back and relaxed user interface would be hard to imagine, I'm sure you'll agree.

But how can this be done? Well, I'm glad you asked.

First off, in the Control Panel, instead of selecting "mouse sensitivity", you choose "cursor weight" based on your lung capacity and how precise you need your cursor movement to be. The "lightest" setting will cause the cursor to to flit to the very edge of your screen at the slightest sigh (not recommended), whereas the "heavy" end of the scale requires Pavarotti-sized lungs even to the nudge the pointer one pixel to the right. A useable level lies somewhere inbetween.

Next, stage: well, there's two mechanisms for this, each with their own pros and cons.Here's the first, which is admittedly a bit fiddly -

Imagine a series of tiny tines running around the edges of your computer screen. Lots of little wires that stick out perhaps half-an-inch or so from the screen. All of these tiny tines are actually very sensitive pressure gauges (told you this was fiddly). Then you take a sheet of clingfilm-type stuff (transparent, but with a bit of give in it), and suspend it from these tines slightly above the screen of the monitor. The sheet is held taut by the tines, but, if you blow on the sheet, the tines measure the pressure of your breath. The computer collates all the data from the various sensors, works out where you're blowing and how hard, and puffs the cursor about the screen accordingly. The advantage of this system is that you can just sit before it and blow- it's kind of simple, but when you need to click on stuff it does begin to suck. Plus, if a fly lands on your screen, you may never see your cursor again. Ditto if your computer is situated in a draughty room.

But; there's always the second option. That of the lightgun straw. Still a hands-free user interface, but weaker in that it needs a bit more technology for it to work. And one that you clamp between your teeth, at that.

It's a straw with a tiny propellor installed at the far end. Some unspecified miracle of minature engineering ensures that the speed at which the propellor rotates is conveyed to your computer - thus telling your overworked computer how hard you're blowing. Also built into the straw is a tiny, laser pointer-like colourmeter. As soon as the computer registers some activity of the straw-fan, for a split second it displays the entire spectrum of colours over your computer screen. Thanks to the colourometer built into the straw, the straw relays the particular colour it has seen during that split-second of colouric overload. Which tells the computer where it was pointed at. The cursor itself would perhaps have a singular identifying colour, one puff for a left click, two for a double click. Or perhaps you could suck rather than blow.

Obviously, all the working parts would be water proof, and so you could continue to dip that same straw into your vodka martini whilst still blowin' three sheets to the wind online...