Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Modding Nokia Cameraphone To Be Mouse

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the one-less-thing-in-my-backpack dept.

ozg333 writes "This guy had the very clever idea of modding a Nokia mobile phone to work as a mouse by using the built in camera. It uses the phone's built-in Bluetooth to link to the PC, so cool! There is also a video of it in action. I can't wait to get one of these, it would mean one less device to carry when I'm travelling."

11 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Nice way to kill your battery ... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Funny

    "It uses the phone's built-in Bluetooth to link to the PC, so cool!"

    First time I've seen "dumb" spelled "c-o-o-l".

  2. battery life by Speare · · Score: 3, Informative

    Boy, and I thought my 2xAAA bluetooth optical mouse had a short battery life! The CCD sensors are only intended for bursts of a few seconds, not for continuous clicky-draggy mouse motions. They chew up a large amount of battery power to amplify extremely small amounts of incoming light signal into usable pixel values.

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
    1. Re:battery life by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Not only that, but you have to hold it above your mouse pad, not in actual contact.

      "Light is needed. My temporary solution is to hold the phone about .6cm above the pad, letting light in the side. My camera picks up enough to see at this distance."

  3. Fake by tliet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What a joker. This is as fake as it can be. The video shows Windows and then it shows him moving his phone about.

  4. Re:DIY Project? by Craptastic+Weasel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I say it's worthy of a slashdotting. Just because it's not "Man uses Nokia cell phone to cure cancer" doesn't mean a million geeks wouldn't find it interesting...

    Or am I fishing too much for the slashdot of yore...

    Anyone that wants to compose a limerick in regards to the slashdot of yore, have at it...

  5. His Windows vs. Linux Article.... by Khakionion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...is a total flame, typical of a Microsoftie who expects to jump headfirst into Slackware/Gentoo and understand everything in a week. When he doesn't, it's the fault of "the community."

    What a tool.

    --
    OMG! Wau!
  6. too much time on their hands by 56ker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The combination of having to hold it 0.6cm above a surface, plus the generally poor battery life of cameraphones makes it a little impractical for normal use.

    Although kudos to them for writing the software to do this.

    --


    Video Game cheats, hints a
  7. I did that already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..and converted my Rowenta steam iron into a mouse so I could surf
    while getting the creases out of my shirts. The phone mod didn't work
    out so good though, someone called me up and I burned half my right ear
    off.

  8. Negative comments by vasanth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I see a lot of negative comments here... what ppl fail to understand is that it is not meant to be a practical solution but a project for the sake of doing it... I enjoy working on small projects in my spare time which do not actually solve anything but just keeps me engaged and the stuff this guy done is cool from that perspective..

  9. How to please everyone by Tx · · Score: 5, Funny

    You may recall this article, about guy turning his optical mouse into an imaging device. Now here we have another guy who wants to turn his imaging device into an optical mouse. Pity they didn't just think of doing a swap, eh? ;)

    --
    Oh no... it's the future.
  10. I don't believe a word by stefanb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This sounds like a really cool hack, but I don't believe a word of it.

    I just took a sample shot with my 6230, and at 1cm, a printed page with 12pt courier on it shows essentially no structure at all, it's all too blurred. At closer range, the body blocks too much light for the camera to aquire anything. My wooden desk and various other things also didn't give any discernible shapes. Looking at the video and the mouse pad, I doubt the camera would see anything at all.

    Even if it is possible to properly track the blobs, I doubt that you'll get high resolution from the typical phone camera. I believe typical optical mice have a resolution between 500 and 2000 dpi, and given the typical 640x480 resolution, you'd need optics to focus the camera on a rather small spot. The mice have these optics, the cameras won't (they're usually wide angle).