The "Magic Mouse" Will Make the Desktop Rodent Extinct

I think that the problem of the syndrome of the carpal tunnel strain is about to become history. If the new mouse prototype is bought by some big honchos, we'll all be pointing our finger at the monitor instead of moving the rodent around the table.

Thanks to Chris Banker, Mike Cretella, Jeff DiMaria, Jamie Mitchell, Jeff Tucker, all seniors at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, the 40-year old mouse might meet its end at the hands of the Magic Mouse.

The new mouse is one of the first winners of the 2007 PopSci Invention Awards and it's fair to say that the seniors behind it deserve every bit of the prize. The working principle is this: the mouse ring emits ultrasonic pulses that are picked up by five receivers mounted on (eventually, in) a monitor. Based on the time each receiver hears the pulse, a processor calculates its position in three dimensions relative to the five spots and translates it to a cursor position onscreen.

Just like with the Wiimote, the communication between the two components of the mouse is extremely fast, 100 times a second, which makes the translation of hand movement to cursor instantaneous.

According to Popsci.com, the students aren't shopping the invention around yet, but they're not without upgrade ideas. Cretella would like to add gesture recognition, and King says they could probably shrink the ring by replacing its speaker with a tiny, vibrating device. Cretella perks up and offers that, ideally, the mouse would look like a normal ring. He pauses, as if hesitant to mention the godhead of computer design aloud, and adds, "Maybe even something Apple would be interested in."

I thought that the Wow Pen Eco presented last week would be the new revolution in desktop mice, but I can say for sure that this looks much more promising, even if it could use some retouches. Anyway, if you want to find out more about it and see more images, go pay Popsci.com a visit. I promise you it will be worth your while.

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