Could Your Mobile Be A Mouse?

The real world is still a long way off, but researchers have created prototype software that allows a cameraphone to work as a mouse.

You won’t be using it anytime soon, but researchers at a pair of British universities have created software that allows a cameraphone to function as a computer mouse, according to a report on Vnunet.   Teams working together at York and Newcastle universities have created the software that uses Bluetooth technology. By moving the phone as you would a mouse, it could interact with public displays, letting users perform such tasks as obtain product information or buy tickets. It works using the camera and a Bluetooth connection.   However, it’s still a long way from any commercial release.   "The image capture and image processing rate on the mobile phone is quite slow and you cannot move the phone as quickly as you would like to. This is what we would like to address in our next prototype," said Nick Pears, one of the researchers at York University.