mouse

Now that fellow Craver Rich Demuro has shown that we can dry our hands properly at long last, it's time to revisit an idea whose time may finally have come: washable computer equipment.

Most of the submergible peripherals we've seen to date are keyboards, but now there's a mouse to go with them. Belkin's cleverly named "Washable Mouse" can take extended bubble baths because of a unique design that places uses a "scroll pad" instead of the usual wheel, according to Gizmodo.

This comes as good news to those of us in … Read more

One of our (many) pet peeves here at Crave is the penchant among some companies to develop products of dubious value, especially when it comes to variations on the mouse. But Iogear has bucked the trend with two useful features in one device even beyond its primary use.

The "Personal Security Mouse," as we reported earlier this year, is equipped to read fingerprints to prevent unauthorized mousage. What we just learned in a press release announcing its shipment, however, is that it another feature that every germaphobe can appreciate: "The surface," it says, "is covered … Read more

Given that fashion is clearly the dominant theme of the day so far, we think it should be applied to some computer stuff before it's too late. But the last place we thought to look would be Office Max.

Still, to its credit, the retailer is planning a line of snazzy peripherals that will undoubtedly stand out amid the sea of printer paper and blank DVDs. The "G-Cube" collection will spice up boring old mice, keyboards and the like this fall in themes with such names as "Enchanted" and "Lux Leopard," according to … Read more

We have gushed over Razer's gaming equipment before, having been particularly fond of its mouse designs. (Who could resist a name like "DeathAdder," after all?)

So we were more than a little pleased to see that it's resurrecting what Electronista calls one of its best-known models. The "Boomslang Collector's Edition 2007" updates its original design with a titanium finish and a distinctive green glow "that adds an eerie effect and also helps locate the mouse in a darkened room during a game session." No price has been disclosed yet for the … Read more

What if someone claimed to have invented a wireless mouse that never needed batteries or a recharger? Yeah, we'd say they were nuts too. But Gizoo is offering one that does just that and even makes the claim in its name: the Battery-Free Wireless Mouse.

How? It draws its energy from the electricity in a companion pad that, unlike the mouse itself, does need a power cord that connects to the computer's USB port, according to Coolest-Gadgets. It may not sound all that useful at first--after all, you're still tethered by the pad's cord--but we've … Read more

Some of us at Crave are depressingly old enough to remember when just about any product made with genuine leather was considered a luxury item. That was long before global trade opened the floodgates to leather goods at polyester prices. So there's really no reason that cowhide should be applied to desktop equipment, PETA notwithstanding.

Hong Kong-based Earth-Treck (not a typo), maker of everyone's favorite USB tape dispenser, is the latest to wrap a line of computer peripherals in leather with its matching mouse and USB hub, according to Akihabara News. The mouse looks familar to us, somewhat … Read more

It seems logical to bestow the computer mouse with security features, as it's already a natural gatekeeper standing perennially at the ready like a loyal sentry guarding the palace. There have been a number of models on the market, for example, that authenticate fingerprints. But an iris reader?

Maybe it's just us, but we're not in the habit of peering into the mouse--or anything else on our desktop--closely enough for our eyeballs to be identified. That's what would apparently be required to get past this picky peripheral from Qritek Japan, which Plastic Bamboo says has a … Read more

What's worse than a garish, tasteless mouse covered in fake diamonds? A garish, tasteless mouse that's accompanied by matching accessories.

As if this pink and white crystal-encrusted optical mouse weren't bad enough, it's offered with a calculator in the same ill-advised motif. Uber-Review suggests this ensemble as a possible gift for Mother's Day. We'd agree only if you had a miserable childhood.

The BBC on Friday ran a piece about a team from IBM and the University of Nevada that has created a model simulation of half a mouse brain on a BlueGene L supercomputer. Well actually, it simulates only a portion of half a mouse brain's cortical cells. And actually, it simulates only a portion of their functionality. And it was able to run at only one-tenth the processing speed of the real thing.

It was still a major accomplishment, though, since they were able to overcome problems surrounding the "tremendous constraints on computation, communication and memory capacity of … Read more