It actually started as a joke during my undergraduate studies. One of my friends told me about it. There is this friend of his who is not that brilliant and once she wanted to copy some files from my friend’s PC to her PC during a computer lab session. She came to his seat, used the mouse to select the file, right clicked the file and selected the option copy. Then she asked him to give his mouse. My friend got surprised and asked why? She said, “Now that I have copied the data to the mouse, I can connect this mouse to my machine and paste it there”. I am not sure whether it’s just a story or whether it actually happened. But since I know her, I consider all the possibility for this situation to happen.
When this ‘urban legend’ was supposedly happened, computers were running Windows 98 on PII/PIII processors, where mice used PS/2 connectors and I wonder whether flash memory and memory sticks were ever heard of the except as a costly gadget of a geek. Now that, around 6-7 years have passed, computers have powerful processors, almost everyone has a USB mouse and it’s difficult to meet a person without some form of storage, whether it’s a flash memory stick, or a portable MP3 player, or IPOD or even a portable HDD.
Now let’s come to the idea. Why can’t we think about what my dear friend had suggested? Attaching a storage device to a small mouse? Many of my friends including me have a laptop and it’ll be with me almost all the time and I keep a mouse also. In my case, I don’t like using the touchpad that extensively. So I take the mouse with me whenever possible. As of now, if I have to copy some data, I have to connect it through the USB device, copy it there. But if I have a storage attached to my mouse, may be I can simply connect my mouse to a USB port, click ‘copy to mouse’ and that’s it. Like my dear lady friend said, I can take the mouse out and connect it to another computer and it has the data.
Since most of the mouse models these days use a USB interface, there may not be much hardware innovation required I think. I am not that expert in the hardware design and all, but I hope this can be done without much trouble. One of my colleagues is carrying a small mouse with winding cable (which will go inside the mouse). In that case it will be very handy also I guess. Since both mouse & memories are relatively cheap these days, cost-wise also this may not be a trouble.
Right after writing till here, I did a Google-ing to find out whether anyone has already did this, and the results amazed me. Lots of them have already been out in the market. Here are some links.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/usb-flash-memory-wireless-mouse-134610.php
http://www.sz-wholesale.com/shenzhen_China_products/Flash-Memory-Mouse_1.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/sep07/09-12mmm8000pr.mspx
I think I am little late with this idea. Anyway I cannot say the idea is really mine. Hats off to my lady friend, who had the foresight to predict such a product, even if it was an ‘accident’. One should not forget that many of the great inventions are the aftermath of ‘miraculous’ accidents.
ps: If this idea had struck me sometime back, I could have patented it (joking).
When this ‘urban legend’ was supposedly happened, computers were running Windows 98 on PII/PIII processors, where mice used PS/2 connectors and I wonder whether flash memory and memory sticks were ever heard of the except as a costly gadget of a geek. Now that, around 6-7 years have passed, computers have powerful processors, almost everyone has a USB mouse and it’s difficult to meet a person without some form of storage, whether it’s a flash memory stick, or a portable MP3 player, or IPOD or even a portable HDD.
Now let’s come to the idea. Why can’t we think about what my dear friend had suggested? Attaching a storage device to a small mouse? Many of my friends including me have a laptop and it’ll be with me almost all the time and I keep a mouse also. In my case, I don’t like using the touchpad that extensively. So I take the mouse with me whenever possible. As of now, if I have to copy some data, I have to connect it through the USB device, copy it there. But if I have a storage attached to my mouse, may be I can simply connect my mouse to a USB port, click ‘copy to mouse’ and that’s it. Like my dear lady friend said, I can take the mouse out and connect it to another computer and it has the data.
Since most of the mouse models these days use a USB interface, there may not be much hardware innovation required I think. I am not that expert in the hardware design and all, but I hope this can be done without much trouble. One of my colleagues is carrying a small mouse with winding cable (which will go inside the mouse). In that case it will be very handy also I guess. Since both mouse & memories are relatively cheap these days, cost-wise also this may not be a trouble.
Right after writing till here, I did a Google-ing to find out whether anyone has already did this, and the results amazed me. Lots of them have already been out in the market. Here are some links.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/usb-flash-memory-wireless-mouse-134610.php
http://www.sz-wholesale.com/shenzhen_China_products/Flash-Memory-Mouse_1.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/sep07/09-12mmm8000pr.mspx
I think I am little late with this idea. Anyway I cannot say the idea is really mine. Hats off to my lady friend, who had the foresight to predict such a product, even if it was an ‘accident’. One should not forget that many of the great inventions are the aftermath of ‘miraculous’ accidents.
ps: If this idea had struck me sometime back, I could have patented it (joking).
9 comments:
Though I can see some vague use case for this, but not compelling enough. If someone can carry a mouse around, they sure can carry a much smaller USB drive. Come to think of it, people don't seem to like the USB'fying of everything. For e.g. there was this Sandisk product with SD card and USB connectivity in the same SD card. This didn't become too popular. There was another case of SD card with WiFi access in it, which also didn't get popular.
I guess if you had thought of it earlier you would have patented it and probably got it too, but you sure wouldn't have got any money off the patent. :-)
hmmm... i hold on to the part about your lady friend.
sometimes someone like my grandma says something out of the blue that seems nonsensical (because i know it cannot be done or has not been) but later on retrospection, i wonder... who is the fool?
and i have no doubt its me.. :)
thanks for sharing this info. nice to know that you were thinking about an idea which was not all practical that time. no need to worry about who is converting it to a product. but idea is importnt..so think think think!
Manu, you still have chances to acquire patents with the help of your old lady friend. Catch her if you can. Maybe, you could patent something 5 yrs from now :D
Indeed, this stuff is a nice gadget. But, as Ajay mentioned, the negatives amplify when considering the fact that you need to carry your 'mouse' memory with you; unless you are a geek using multiple PCs at a time. :)
Can you tell who was that "brilliant" friend of yours?
Well, speaking of USB, this is perhaps the best USB gadget that has ever happened since the USB Rocket Launcher: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/9c89/
The patent part was just a joke.. The point I wanted to stress is even the most stupidest thing can be triggers of some wonderful ideas. I also don't expect this to be a huge success or anything, but you can atleast have a single gadget instead or a mouse and a thumb drive.. ;)
Too good..How many times, we use the mouse, but it never struck me even once this possibility. Good thinking!!
But I think carrying a mouse is too large when compared to a pen drive, right..so maybe thats a reason why it isnt popular yet. But for lazy people like me, this will save the time of pluggin in the device, copying, plugging it out..then copy to the other system again repeating steps 1 and 3.. Too good..
You have got great ideas...Think more..All the best..
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