Have you ever been sitting at your laptop or desktop thinking, "I really need a selfie right about now and this webcam simply will not do"? I have no idea what is wrong with you. Do you not have a cellphone if spontaneous self-photography means that much?
But at least a Japanese company has your back… or is it front?
For the love of… it's even being held the wrong way!!!
Introducing the Camera Mouse. It is a mouse with a camera in it. It is useful if you want to take pictures of things with your mouse. It will be sold by King Jim Co., LTD. which is one of the largest office supplies manufacturers in Japan.
While I have been thinking about this news story, I have been thinking about legitimate use cases. It has been a struggle. I just cannot understand why someone would want to purchase a 1600×1200 camera which is hard-wired to their computer. Thus far, I have only come up with a single possibilities (although it would require significant software development resources that I doubt they intend to provide). The only way I could see myself purchasing this mouse is if it came with OCR and translation software so that I could point it at my monitor and automatically translate any text on screen.
Even then, I expect the vast majority of foreign language content would be in a web browser and two of those automatically translate text anyway. It would help for text in images or text in videos but otherwise I could not see the point even then. Moreover, all of this assumes the software even exists in a reasonable package (Bluestacks running Google Translate is probably no more useful than a cell phone).
But who knows. I could be missing the bigger picture. I could be missing the subtle nuances of their target audience. Maybe I just need to see things at two megapixels from under a sweaty palm.
Perhaps you are on the road a
Perhaps you are on the road a lot with your laptop and need to take pictures of receipts to enter into expense accounts or collect checks which you wish to immediately deposit. And you find it tedious to use your camera phone for these chores.
Other than that, I am drawing a blank.
I know — it’s tough to think
I know — it's tough to think of a use case, right? Even then I'm not sure why you couldn't wave it in front of your webcam.
Maybe for taking pictures
Maybe for taking pictures that a web cam can’t if you know what I mean.
Maybe if you are a
Maybe if you are a Congressman for taking picture of your Weiner if you know what I mean
Only the Japanese would come
Only the Japanese would come up with something this weird.
For those up skirt shots, Hay
For those up skirt shots, Hay didn’t Old Osmond, on of Zero No Tsukaima, have a mouse for just such a purpose.
Probably not what the
Probably not what the developers had in mind, but you’re definitely not too far off from the truth.
Just seems pretty strange,
Just seems pretty strange, odd even. It is not even wireless 😛
You know? I never even picked
You know? I never even picked up on that. I never use wireless mice, however.
If there was a way to stably
If there was a way to stably position the mouse on a flat surface or attach it to a monitor/on top of a laptop’s screen, I could see this being a somewhat convenient external webcam for Skype video calls for people who have laptops with non present or very low definition webcams and for people who want to tilt/move the webcam around when video conferencing, but do not want to carry a separate webcam with them ( while already being used to carrying a mouse).
It’s niche, but the success of the mouse will probably only depend on its marketing anyway, as is the case for the already existing sea of useless, gimmicky ‘gadgets’ and their accessories.
Personally I will wait for
Personally I will wait for the cordless model. Or maybe a camera maker will use bluetooth and use a camera as a mouse. Unless someone will write an app turning my phone into a mouse?