Microsoft has had its Touch Mouse out for a little while now, and I guess it’s feeling like people aren’t taking enough advantage of its gestureliciousness. The big M donated an entire colony of touch mice and a handy development API to a student contest and told them to get creative, and here are the results.
These videos how the eight award-winning student projects took advantage of the Microsoft Touch Mouse to do the following:
* Experiment and combine the Touch Mouse with other devices and sensors
* Get creative and write new applications for the Touch Mouse
* Demonstrate “outside the box” thinking using a tool that we use in our daily lives, in unique and different ways
As far as I can tell, they might as well have just said, “hey, take this thing and do something awesome,” but you can decide for yourself. Check out the videos:
01. Wellesley College, “TUI.TAR”
Voted most creative: Finally, a mouse that you can rub all over your body to pretend that it’s a guitar. Finally.
02. Claremont College, “FlipMouse”
Voted most creative: Turn your mouse upside-down to create a tilt-sensing peripheral that doubles as a laser eye-blaster.
03. Carnegie Mellon University, “Window Manipulation”
Voted most useful: I would absolutely use this window manipulation functionality every single day, and you would too.
04. Wellesley College, “Where’s Bo Peep?”
Voted most useful: This demo proves the potential of a comprehensive understanding of “normal sheep gestures.”
05. IT University of Copenhagen, “Toki D.I.Y. Toolkit”
Voted best implementation: Mouse pajamas and a crazy crazy elephants show users how to take advantage of the capabilities of the Touch Mouse.
06. UC Berkeley, “The Moussage Mat”
Voted best implementation: If I had to pick one demo to try out for myself, it would absolutely be this one. Remote massage FTW.
07. MIT Media Lab, “Snail Interface”
Voted the people’s choice: Possibly the world’s cutest mouse, there’s a lot you can do by combining a manipulator with a projection system.
08. KAIST, “Grip to Identify”
Voted the people’s choice: Forget logins and passwords; the way that you grip a mouse can be used to identify you.