mouse

We've seen plenty of gestural alternatives to the standard wireless mouse, but here's one that's lightweight enough to hang on your index finger.

The Flick Finger Mouse from the indefatigable gadget magicians at Japan's Thanko lets you manipulate a cursor by pointing in the air and clicking with your thumb.

Designed for Windows, Mac, and Android, the pointer has two modes: laser and air. In the former it works as an ordinary mouse, but set it to "air" and it's no longer bound to your desk. … Read more

TAIPEI -- In addition to new laptops and tablets, Asus also showcased its latest home theater PC (HTPC) offerings, the VivoPC and VivoMouse, at Computex.

The VivoPC appears somewhat larger than the Mac mini, but it has a high-quality metal chassis and is designed to blend easily among A/V devices. Other key differentiators include a pair of front speakers and 3.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) support. This is unlike most small form factor PCs, which can accept only 2.5-inch HDDs.

Update: This article was originally posted on June 5, 2013 7:58 AM PDT.

Updated on June … Read more

WizMouse from Antibody Software takes care of an annoying issue in Windows that has only gotten worse as PC screens have grown bigger: the need to click each window before you can use your mouse in it. With WizMouse running, any visible window is active; just mouse over it to activate menus, commands, and links for clicking. Whether windows overlap or are separated by space, WizMouse treats them the same. And not just buttons, either: WizMouse also enables scrolling, even in applications lacking mouse wheel support (though that's an experimental option that can cause "strange behavior" in … Read more

The default size of the mouse pointers in OS X should allow them to be viewable in most situations, but there could be some instances in which the cursor can be difficult to locate. For example, if you need to dim your screen, it might be difficult to find the pointer; and sometimes, optional pointers -- such as those for text input or crosshairs -- can become lost among the textures of images on the screen.

This might be especially true when using projectors and large-format displays, where the relatively small cursor can be difficult to locate.

While you can … Read more

WizMouse from Antibody Software takes care of an annoying issue in Windows that has only gotten worse as PC screens have grown bigger: the need to click each window before you can use your mouse in it. With WizMouse running, any visible window is active; just mouse over it to activate menus, commands, and links for clicking. Whether windows overlap or are separated by space, WizMouse treats them the same. And not just buttons, either: WizMouse also enables scrolling, even in applications lacking mouse wheel support (though that's an experimental option that can cause "strange behavior" in … Read more

We had to smile when we read about Keyboard and Mouse Cleaner and the one thing it does because it's such a simple and neat answer to a universal problem. Namely, how to clean your keyboard and mouse without either shutting down your PC or clicking and typing a lot of random keys (never a good idea).

This free app from Gromicho AF Systems turns off your keyboard and mouse for 60 seconds when you click its broom icon. That's enough time to blow out that crumb catcher you call a keyboard or clean the dust from your … Read more

If you use your computer daily, you might have thought about how much time you spend doing the same things over and over again. Mouse Recorder is a tool designed to automate tasks you perform with your mouse by letting you record the steps and replay them easily. While it worked for some tasks, others weren't so easily reproduced.

The small interface holds only a few options, including the two main buttons, Record and Repeat. We liked that each button includes a keyboard shortcut to start the processes, as well. The rest of the interface lets you fine-tune how … Read more

Repeating the same tasks every day on your computer can eat up a lot of time. But an app that helps you automate some of those things could provide welcome relief. Automatic Mouse and Keyboard has lots of options to do just that, but the resulting recordings don't always perform as expected.

The initial interface includes multiple icons bordering the top and left. Automatic Mouse and Keyboard opens with three example recordings displayed, but the first one we tried, which was supposed to draw a triangle in MS Paint, didn't work, and we simply got an error message … Read more

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On this week's Crave, we take a first look a gadget that truly blows, an optical game controller that looks like a kazoo. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield gives us some more cooking tips from space. And Hotello is a hotel room in a box. Sounds uncomfortable, no? All that and more on this week's episode. … Read more