Slashdot Mirror
Smart Mouse with E-Mail and IM Alerts
lilrock writes "CoolTechZone.com takes a look at the world's first smart mouse from Logitech, the MX610, that has e-mail and IM alert buttons. It also has auto turn on/off functionality as well. According to the article, 'All these standard features aside, what has us impressed are the e-mail and IM notification buttons. Though the idea behind them is simple, it's interesting how Logitech comes up with such exclusive features. Basically, you will have to configure the indicators to alert you when you receive an e-mail and/or an IM message from the person of your choice. The buttons will alert you by lighting up, and lead you directly to the message once you press them.' " Because I for one am constantly staring at my mouse when I have a gigantic monitor right in front of me. Cough.
Perhaps some people use screen-savers, but would still like to have a visible indicator of when e-mail arrives?
Why is someone spamming from CoolTechZone.com and gets accepted?
/. to drive ad revenue, apart from the editors of course.
The last two stories from CTZ were probably posted by the same user under different names, but what is common in both users is that they both specified http://slashdot.org/ as url (when clicking on their nicks). I don't think it's too far fetched to assume that someone is spamming with the intention to post inflammatory/poorly written stories to
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Because you can NEVER have enough blinking lights :P
Seriously though, I doubt the software requires that much overhead, and the extra feedback could be usefull to some people. Personally I won't be buying one, but I can imagine that some people might find it handy.
Why the fuck would you want you fucking mouse to do this ? A mouse is there for interactivity in a GUI, or more generally to represent the analogy between hand movements and virtual movements.
Why should the mouse ever check for email ? I have a programamble computer to do things like that.
This is the worst case of slashvertisement ever ! I'm sad I'm not a subscriber so I could ask my money back !
Am I the only who dosen't want email or IM alerts?
You and I both know that this is yet another attempt to get around M$'s single screen interface. Because M$ has yet to make virtual desktops work, most people don't have it and suffer desktop congestion. A brave few have ventured into the expensive world of dual monitors, but they are still limited to the screen space and that's not enough for them. Others, such as Nvidia, have done the right thing and made virtual desktops but the last time I saw one it was slow and crash prone as you can expect anything M$ wants to be "first" with. This goofy mouse is just another attempt to gain useful space. On any system using X and a decent window manager, you can get a popup for your IM and email and it works. On Winblows, the pop up might not rise to the top and could be lost in the congestion if it did. That's the reason they made this thing.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Because I for one am constantly staring at my mouse when I have a gigantic monitor right in front of me.
Most people don't stare at their mouse constantly, BUT a flashing LED on your mouse will be quite visible in your pheripheral vision. Actually it will probably be more visible then a small icon or text flashing in one of the corners of the screen. Our pheripheral vision is quite good at recognizing movement, bright colors and flashing light, all of which were very useful to our cavemen anscenstors and as still useful to us today.
I think its a good idea, but some people might find this feature annoying after a while (e.g. teenagers who send messages per hour than speak sentences during the day).
Yeah, the extra buttons on those common-as-dirt Compaq USB keyboards sure are useful when plugged into an OS X box. And now your hand will be between you and the lights most of the time. Oh yeah, and this will be real useful for left-handed mouse users.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
One thing I have never understood is why wireless mice do not seem to have battery on/off switches. Although they go to a low power mode after a while, some of them get retriggered when moving around in a briefcase, and the battery life is shorter than it needs to be. Is a physical switch really that difficult?
Pining for the fjords