The ball mouse may have a use yet. Inside a standard ball mouse, there are two rollers that track the rotation of the ball for x/y movement.

Simply attach a small motor such as those used in pagers to the rollers, and you have a mouse that's able to move itself. Add some special software drivers, and it can be fully application controlled. Make it wireless for longer distances.

Great for pranks, but beyond that I see little practical purpose.
-- Aq_Bi, Dec 27 2004

(?) Robotic Mice http://www.harvardm...99/right.touch.html
Brief news article on haptic mouse [tiromancer, Dec 27 2004]

Haptic Mouse http://diuf.unifr.c...ssi_ICAT_2004_1.pdf
A more detailed paper, with pictures [tiromancer, Dec 27 2004]

"Web Based Applications for Blind People to Create Virtual Graphs" http://www.dcs.gla....YU_Haptics03_v8.pdf
Surprisingly self explanatory title [tiromancer, Dec 27 2004]

There are a few, more practical uses
-- tiromancer, Dec 27 2004


Sorry, rounding up links. Map reading, gaming, interface for the blind, faster and more streamlined interfaces/increased productivty etc. It's a pretty big field.

Surgery, and remote operation of various types of devices.

Ok, surgery might be pushing it.
-- tiromancer, Dec 27 2004


The mouse would appear to be completely normal. It uses the normal sensors already on the mouse for both the cursor and motor movement.

You wouldn't be able to tell it from a regular mouse until it starts moving.

The inkjet idea gets me thinking. If the mouse had a high quality optic sensor on it as well, it could replace the scanner and webcam. (You have to train it to sit up for the webcam mode:)

Using the flash memory idea, it could scan/print directly to it's internal memory without the computer. This however might be too complex for the user without a display.
-- Aq_Bi, Dec 27 2004



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