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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.
A good idea, especially with IM. When you have 20 windows, and you have an msn/whatever window blinking at you annoyingly, having a button that will immediately go to that message sounds handy. It will stop the blinking very quickly! I like it.
Or are at work and are doing something elsewhere and aren't constantly looking at their screen. Perhaps they hide their taskbar alerts for AIM because they aren't supposed to be using IM clients at work. Their boss might know that a flashing taskbar item is an IM but a flashing mouse button might not be known yet?
Other than that, I really don't see a use for it myself.
Because I for one am constantly staring at my mouse when I have a gigantic monitor right in front of me.
As long as it has a long enough range, it could be useful to just take your mouse with you when you go away from the computer - to work on some paper based thing, prehaps.
Although the article makes fun of the output LEDs/buttons, that isn't such a bad thing; if you could make them do what you want, it would be really neat. Especially for someone who does system administration, who needs to somehow prioritize various distractions.
However, I went to logitech's site and discovered the following:
They don't provide (at least I can't find it) details on how to talk to the mouse to use the buttons/LEDs for input/output. You have to use their "SetPoint" software, which only works under Windows. And maybe it doesn't work the way you want it to.
So the mouse can't be used for other systems, and you can't program the mouse to work the way that you want it to work. Which is too bad.
Even if Logitech provided "open source" software, that wouldn't help folks who want to really use the hardware for neat things -- they need the technical specs that the "SetPoint" authors used to make the software work in the first place.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
My mouse could be neon green with 60 flashing lights on it and I would never notice it. I just went to the AT&T natural voice site and created a few female voice messages with the text I typed in to alert me of mail from certain people or business. Since she has an English accent it is different from my regular computer voice. I am using OS X so I just create a mail rule that will color the background of the message and then play the sound file for that person. Since I leave mail running in the background most of the day I will always know when I get an email from a person that I know, even if I am not looking at the computer.
If you run Linux, you can forget this.
Logitech refuse to support using Linux with their products - just ask anyone with a DiNovo mediapad keyboard. All they have to do is tell us the protocol, which won't cost them a penny, but they won't. Asshats.
When I worked at HP (the part that became Agilent) we had HP PCs with keyboards that included an email LED (next to the Caps, Scroll and Num lock LEDs). It also had some quicklaunch buttons but they aren't so interesting.
It was really useful to not have to unlock the computer just to check if you had been sent that email yet.
First off I'll second all the objections to this ridiculous product: It's unnecessarily limited, proprietary, non-compatible, and probably-- anyone know for sure?-- absurdly patented. That said, there are two underlying concepts embodied here which I think are worthwhile as we look towards future interface design.
One: More I/O is almost always good. The human brain is in large part a pattern recognizing machine; put meaningful information anywhere in someone's environment and they'll adapt to make use of it. If this product was aimed at slashdotters, the ad copy could have read: "Mouse that displays two bits of information!" It's not much, but it's more than your mouse used to be telling you.
Two: Input and output work well in connected loops. It's much more intuitive that if somewhere lights up to tell you about something that needs your attention, you respond by touching there. If properly implemented, this kind of integrity to a mini I/O situation could help us in making meaningful connections and associations. For instance, if there is a button somewhere that lights up when we get an IM from a particular person, and brings up an IM window to that person when pressed (whether it's lit or not), then that button represents that person on multiple levels.
We are primed and ready to make emotional connections with the things around us. One might have thought that having a light that shows HD or network activity would be silly-- in fact it's often practical-- but more than practical, it's often reassuring. For decades now, when a computer looks like it might be hung, I look to the HD light to reassure me that it really is doing something. That light has an emotional meaning for me.
So, yes, this particular product is a ridiculous implementation, but the ideas which are being ridiculously implemented are themselves worthwhile. There's something missing in all of the vibrating mice and email buttons they've come up with so far, but that doesn't mean that we should never explore I/O that goes beyond 101 keys and one big glowing square.
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