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How to Choose the Best Computer Mouse
from Life123

Early mice had one or two buttons at most and operated with a rubberized ball that transferred motion to a pair of rollers inside the mouse that translated the ball’s movements into a horizontal and vertical position on the monitor. While this type of computer mouse was efficient, the rubber ball sometimes swelled in humid weather and the rollers would clog with desktop debris, making the computer mouse less accurate over time.

Skip the ball for your next computer mouse. An optical mouse uses an LED to track motion, eliminating the problems of dirt buildup. Optical mice work on most surfaces without a mouse pad, but if you have a translucent glass or polished stone desk you’ll need to keep the mouse pad.

A computer mouse with laser optics provides greater precision for designers, architects and digital artists. Unless you need a truly precise mouse, say for freehand drawing or modeling, it’s better to choose a less-expensive optical mouse.

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The eyes have it: Logo from the Gaze-enhanced User Interface Design (GUIDe) project at Stanford. The project’s goal is to use information about where a person is looking in order to develop applications that make interacting with computers easier. Credit: Manu Kumar, the GUIDe Program at Stanford University

An Alternative to the Computer Mouse
A user interface that tracks eye movement may provide an alternate way to use a computer.
By Kate Greene

A researcher at Stanford has created an alternative to the mouse that allows a person using a computer to click links, highlight text, and scroll simply by looking at the screen and tapping a key on the keyboard. By using standard eye-tracking hardware--a specialized computer screen with a high-definition camera and infrared lights--Manu Kumar, a doctoral student who works with computer-science professor Terry Winograd, has developed a novel user interface that is easy to operate.


"Eye-tracking technology was developed for disabled users," Kumar explains, "but the work that we're doing here is trying to get it to a point where it becomes more useful for able-bodied users." He says that nondisabled users tend to have a higher standard for easy-to-use interfaces, and previously, eye-tracking technology that disabled people use hasn't appealed to them.


At the heart of Kumar's technology is software called EyePoint that works with standard eye-tracking hardware. The software uses an approach that requires that a person look at a Web link, for instance, and hold a "hot key" on the keyboard (usually found on the number pad on the right) as she is looking. The area of the screen that's being looked at becomes magnified. Then, the person pinpoints her focus within the magnified region and releases the hot key, effectively clicking through to the link.


Kumar's approach could take eye-tracking user interfaces in the right direction. Instead of designing a common type of gaze-based interface that is controlled completely by the eyes--for instance, a system in which a user gazes at a given link, then blinks in order to click through--he has involved the hand, which makes the interaction more natural. "He's got the right idea to let the eye augment the hand," says Robert Jacob, professor of computer science at Tufts University, in Medford, MA.


Rudimentary eye-tracking technology dates back to the early 1900s. Using photographic film, researchers captured reflected light from subjects' eyes and used the information to study how people read and look at pictures. But today's technology involves a high-resolution camera and a series of infrared light-emitting diodes. This hardware is embedded into the bezel of expensive monitors; the one Kumar uses cost $25,000. The camera picks up the movement of the pupil and the reflection of the infrared light off the cornea, which is used as a reference point because it doesn't move.


Even the best eye tracker isn't perfect, however. "The eye is not really very stable," says Kumar. Even when a person is fixated on a point, the pupil jitters. So he wrote an algorithm that allows the computer to smooth out the eye jitters in real time. The rest of the research, says Kumar, involves studying how people look at a screen and figuring out a way to build an interface that "does not overload the visual channel." In other words, he wanted to make its use feel natural to the user.


One of the important features of the interface, says Kumar, is that it works without a person needing to control a cursor. Unlike the mouse-based system in ubiquitous use today, EyePoint provides no feedback on where a person is looking. Previous studies have shown that it is distracting to a person when she is aware of her gaze because she consciously tries to control its location. In the usability studies that Kumar conducted, he found that people's performance dropped when he implemented a blue dot that followed their eyes.

In his studies of 20 people, he found that participants that needed to type and point could point faster using the gaze-based appraoch than using a mouse, although the error rate--20 percent--was fairly high. But overall, about 90 percent of participants reported that they preferred using EyePoint to the mouse.


It's the 20 percent error rate that could cause some problems, says Ted Selker, professor at the MIT Media and Arts Technology Laboratory. "[It's] a huge amount," he says, "because a person can notice a significant decline in accuracy at just 5 percent." Selker adds that the low accuracy could make text editing a challenge.


Kumar concedes that the system isn't perfect, but he contends that many of the errors came from people, who due to lack of practice, clicked links that they thought they had looked at but were only in their peripheral vision. Indeed, he says, trackpads, trackpoints, trackballs do not perform as well as a mouse either but are still viable input devices. Kumar says he's been working on algorithms that show promise for making EyePoint more accurate by accounting for peripheral vision related errors. Still, he allows that EyePoint might work poorly for certain people, such as those with thick glasses, special contact lenses, or lazy eyes.



Even so, Kumar is confident in the technology and its development as a tool for the general population. To that end, he has tested a number of different interface schemes, all under a project called Gaze-enhanced User Interface Design (GUIDe). Another application, called EyeExposé, is made for Apple's OS X feature called Exposé, in which a person can hit the F11 key to miniaturize all open windows, then drag the mouse cursor to the window she wants to bring forward. With EyeExposé, the user can hit the F11 key, then bring forward a window of interest by tapping a keyboard key. Also, Kumar has modified the "scroll lock" key on a keyboard in an application called EyeScroll: as a person reads, the screen slowly reveals more text. In addition, Kumar is testing a modified version of the "page up" and "page down" keys. When a person reads to the bottom of a page, the software automatically scrolls down one page; in order to help a reader keep her place, the most recently looked at part of the screen is highlighted.


The important thing about the Stanford research, says Shumin Zhai, researcher at IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA and pioneer in the eye-tracking field, is that Kumar "has been working on making eye tracking practical for everyday tasks." However, Zhai says that there may still be a barrier for the average person because she needs to go through a calibration process in which the software measures how quickly her eyes move.


There are some signs that eye-tracking technology could find its way to the consumer market soon. Apple's desktops and laptops are now equipped with a built-in camera for videoconferencing. If a higher-resolution camera, infrared LEDs, and software were added, Apple's machines would be able to support applications from the GUIDe project, says Kumar. If eye tracking proves appealing to the consumer, and the hardware costs drop to a reasonable range, eye-tracking interfaces could provide an alluring and entertaining alternative to the mouse or laptop track pad. "It's almost like magic when it's working," says Tufts's Jacob. "The sensation you get is that the computer's reading your mind, and that's really very powerful."


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Computer Mouse Help and Troubleshooting Tips
By: Jaceson Maughan

The computer mouse is second only to the keyboard in how you access and operate your computer, so when you need computer mouse help, take the time to troubleshoot what might be wrong before buying a new one.

Optical or Roller Mouse
An optical mouse or roller mouse can cause trouble when the working parts become dirty or grimy. For an optical mouse, clean the optical “eye” on the bottom of the mouse with a cotton swab dipped in some rubbing alcohol. Let it dry thoroughly. Clean up a roller mouse by removing the roller ball ring and taking out the ball. Clean it with mild soap and warm water. With a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol, clean the internal rollers thoroughly and let them air dry.

Wireless Mouse
When your wireless mouse starts to act up, you may notice that the tracking is no longer smooth, it takes more than two clicks to select something on the screen or the mouse doesn’t track for short periods of time. There are several things you can do to get the best performance from your wireless mouse without asking for computer help from an expert.

Check the receiver for the mouse, which is connected to the computer. The receiver should be plugged into the PS/2 or USB port; sometimes it can come loose or get blocked by something. If the signals are not being received from the mouse, poor performance will result.

A wireless mouse runs on batteries. When they run low, the mouse could demonstrate signs of unreliability. If you’ve checked the receiver and it seems fine, exchange the old batteries for new ones. Most wireless mouse setups either use a couple of AA batteries or must be recharged with a dedicated charger. Ensure that the wireless muse is fully charged before trying it out again.

Mouse Drivers
If cleaning and checking the mouse doesn’t work, you may need to reconfigure the mouse driver. You can do this by performing a system restore (that resets the computer to the last time the mouse was working) or you may even have to reload the mouse driver. Depending on your computer setup, refer to the owner’s manual for details on how to do that. A computer repair service can also assist you in this process if you are not comfortable doing it yourself.

If these troubleshooting tips do not restore function to the mouse, you may need to take the wireless mouse to a computer repair service for a more detailed inspection and internal examination.



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Some folks don't use a mouse pad with an optical mouse. Although, it can be done. The computer mouse, optical or not, works best on the surface of a smooth mousepad. It also keeps the bottom of the mouse clean. It's a personal choice, and most computer users opt for the mouse pad for smooth, clean mouse movement. The ValueRays Heated Mouse Pad shown above is available online for under $30!

How an Optical Mouse Works With Your Computer
By Dachary Carey

Meet the optical mouse: a revolutionary device that eliminates sticky roller wheels, dirty sensors and irritating banging just to get your mouse to work. Gone are the days when you had to worry about opening a mouse to clean the scroll ball or sensors; the optical mouse makes all this bother obsolete by using imaging technology.

What Is an Optical Mouse?
An optical mouse doesn’t use sensor bars and a roller ball like a mechanical mouse. Instead, it bounces light off a surface to determine where it’s located and whether or not you’ve moved the mouse. Because an optical mouse works using a CMOS light sensor, you don’t have to worry about any moving parts. Desktop dirt and dust can still block the lens, but this is easily wiped off and you don't need to take the mouse apart to do it.

Optical mice are ideal in households with pets, because you don’t have to worry about dirt or fuzz accumulating and clogging the mouse sensors. They’re also great if you have an aversion to dusting, and you tend to accumulate fuzz or dirt on your desktop. You can use an optical mouse in a workshop or other area prone to dust or smoke without worrying about the mouse getting gummed up or having to clean it every couple of days.

Pictures Become Movement
An optical computer mouse works by bouncing light off a surface and taking hundreds of pictures per second to determine whether the surface has changed. The digital signal processor analyzes the pictures and measures the change in the surface, which translates to how far and in what direction you’ve moved the optical mouse. Because the mouse works from hundreds of pictures per second, the cursor appears to move very smoothly and you don’t have a jumpy, juddering motion.

This means that you can use an optical mouse anywhere. Because it doesn’t require contact with a slightly soft, tactile surface to manipulate a scroll ball, you can use an optical mouse on any surface, as long as its not transparent. You don’t need a mouse pad or even desk space; you can use an optical mouse on a book, your lap or any other relatively flat surface that can hold it. An optical laptop mouse is a great traveling companion for your laptop.

Precision and Control
Because an optical mouse can detect very small movements, this type of mouse offers superior precision and fine control over your mouse functions. Cursor movement is very smooth, enabling you to be much more precise than you would with a mechanical mouse. Gamers and graphic designers prefer the optical mouse because of its superior precision and fine control.

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The first computer mouse is a far-cry from the technology and functionality of today's warm computer mouse. Take for example, the heated computer mouse generates healing infrared heat to soothe aching muscles and improves blood circulation. Do you think the warm computer mouse was a thought 40 years ago? Probably not!

Douglas Engelbart

Who Invented the Computer Mouse?
By Gene Rodriguez III from Life123


Have you ever wondered who invented the computer mouse? The computer mouse is a pointing device that tracks its position on the desktop and uses the information to control the position of the cursor on screen. While mice are now common computer accessories, their acceptance was slow in coming.

Ancestors of the Modern Computer Mouse
In the 1950s, researchers working for the Royal Canadian Navy used a small bowling ball to create the first track ball. This pointing device was created as part of a top-secret project and never patented.

In 1968, Douglas Engelbart, working at the Stanford Research Institute, invented a single-button mouse he referred to as a "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System." The first mouse was made of wood and used two wheels to track the X and Y positions, which were translated into motion on a computer monitor. Engelbart patented his invention in 1970, but his patent expired before the device became popular.

In 1972, Bill English, a colleague of Englbart’s, developed the ball mouse while working for Xerox PARC. English’s mouse worked like an inverted trackball and came as standard equipment with Xerox 8010 Star Information System distributed in 1981.

In 1984, Apple computer released the first Macintosh (Mac) computer. The graphical user interface of the Mac, which borrowed heavily from work done at Xerox, made extensive use of the mouse. The popularity of the Mac established the mouse as the standard pointing device for PCs.

What Is a Computer Mouse Today?
The ball mouse was popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. These older models had a small rubber ball in the base that triggered rollers to determine the X and Y coordinates on a monitor, and they only had one button. There were two big problems with the design: first, early mouse balls would swell in heat or high humidity, making the mouse inoperable. Second, all the dirt on a desk would eventually work its way into the mouse and gum up the roller wheels.

In the 1990s, optical mice were developed that used a light sensor to track the position of the device. Early optical mice needed to be used with special pads printed with a grid pattern. Advancements in technology allowed optical mice to be used on any surface, as long as it's not transparent.

Although the first mice had one button, later versions had two and sometimes three buttons. In 1997, Microsoft introduced the IntelliMouse that featured a scrolling wheel. With support built in to most major applications, the scroll wheel became a standard mouse feature for Windows PCs.