back to article Canon crossbreeds mouse with adder

Canon has been busy genetically splicing technology and has released a computer mouse that doubles up as a calculator. Behold the X Mark I Mouse. Canon X Mark I Mouse While the Bluetooth 2.0 device includes three mouse buttons and laser tracking, this one can also be used for calculations - as well as providing a numeric …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Censored!

    "It's not often you get to announce your mouse can say boobies"

    You could always draw nipples on your mouse buttons. Don't do that on an original 1987 IBM mouse though, that would look like septuagenarian boobies.

  2. LauRoman
    Coffee/keyboard

    Black Adder Mouse?

    I almost thought they were breeding mice with their natural hunters... adders. :)

  3. Ben79
    Thumb Up

    Want one

    If just for the numeric keypad

  4. Graham Bartlett

    Not so clever

    So how do you avoid pressing all the number keys when you're moving the mouse around? Chalk this up to "another crappy idea".

    1. Lottie

      really?

      I thought most folk would be able to either adjust how they held the mouse or typically manipulated it with fingertips instead of resting their palms on the top?

    2. James Hughes 1

      No design engineer, but

      I put very little pressure on the mouse when moving it about, so clicky (TM) buttons should be more than adequate. (and presumably Canon have a similar concept. Unlikely to have made it to the sales stage if is basically doesn't work)

      I like the idea. It's a pain having to run up a calculator on screen where it just gets in the way, and a desk one also gets in the way.

    3. The Indomitable Gall

      Not pressing buttons

      You're not supposed to rest your hand on a mouse, you're supposed to hold it with your fingers. Personally I think all mice should have something on top to discourage people from resting their palms on it, and numerical buttons are as good as anything, I suppose.

      1. M Gale

        Not supposed to rest your hand on a mouse?

        Quick, tell the ergonomic mouse manufacturers. They've been designing pointing devices that curve nicely into the palm of your hand for years!

        That and you're "supposed" to lay your whole arm across the table and use your shoulder and elbow to move the thing, if various anti-RSI pictures are to be believed. Stops so much movement at the wrist and allows you to keep muscles relaxed, y'see.

        http://www.rsi-shop.co.uk/products/airobic-mouse-right-handed-white-prev-quill-mouse-usb.asp

      2. Kookas
        WTF?

        umadbro?

        Hold it with your fingers without having your palm on the mouse? I generally associate that with the computer illiterates who are afraid of computers and think they might break it by doing that. It's a pretty awkward position.

      3. Steven Roper

        I rest my hand on the mouse

        and have been for the last 23 years with no ill effects. The mouse carries most of the weight of my hand, and I move east-west by rotating my wrist, while moving north-south by flexing my thumb and fingers against the mouse. How one holds a mouse is a matter of personal choice, The Indomitable Gall, so I must disagree with your proposal to make all mice to force people to use them in what you consider to be the correct way.

        Obviously that means that this calculator mouse wouldn't be much good to me personally, since my palm would be pressing buttons all over the shop every time I moved it, but it's a good idea nonetheless.

  5. Kimbie

    no calc please

    Id take one without the calculator bit

  6. Christian Berger

    The calculator is useless

    It doesn't do sinus and cosinus.

    1. Tom 38
      Headmaster

      Sinus?

      How would you get a nose cavity into a computer mouse?

      Oh, you mean sine and cosine..

      1. Jonathan Richards 1
        FAIL

        Oh noes, not nose!

        Yes, sinus. With a name like Christian Berger, might the OP not be a native speaker of a language other than English, like, say, German? Guess what's German for sine?

        Check before flying off at a tangent.

        1. Steven Roper
          Headmaster

          @ Jonathan Richards

          That is as it may be, but theregister.co.UK is an English language news site, based in England, for English speaking people, therefore it is reasonable to expect that those who use it have a good command of the English language.

  7. banjomike
    WTF?

    Not a new idea ...

    ... not by a long long shot.

    Pretty though.

  8. TRT Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    I like.

    Nice. better than the SMK-LINK one that *looks* in the pictures like it matches the Apple Keyboard's profile, but in reality is 1.2 times bigger.

  9. Ian Ferguson
    Facepalm

    Canon's next product:

    A keyboard that is also a typewriter.

  10. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Meh

    Very clever

    Why do you need one again?

    Does it allow you to do numeric input when you're over a numeric entry field perhaps?

  11. Lottie
    Thumb Up

    Good idea

    I doubt the calculator bit would come in handy as the one in windows seems more functional, but having it as a numeric pad is brilliant! Lack of a number pad has always been something that annoyed the hell out of me with laptop keyboards.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Idea

      It strikes me that it would be more useful if it only had (bigger) numeric keypad buttons, and replaced the screen with a button you could press to open your calculator app of choice on the connected computer.

      Still not sure I'd ever go for one, though!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Burn it now

    So just when did Canon hire Alan Sugar as new product innovator? Any way they could jam an alarm clock and AM/FM radio into it at the same time? The screen isn't even a nice high res OLED display suitable for displaying arbitrary stuff... it's just a bog standard LCD matrix straight from the 80's. URGH.

    1. Alan 6

      Why the anger

      Where in the article does it say you'll be forced by law to buy one?

      So why the high blood pressure?

      It's a mouse with a built in calculator, quite a neat idea really. It doesn't have margin & tax functions, so not for me, but too many buttons would have made it to big, so it does what most people want.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If anyone can, Canon can...

    ...but whether they should or not is a matter for debate.

  14. Doug Glass
    Go

    And here I was thinking ...

    ... only Apple has true imagination.

  15. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
    Facepalm

    Pretty cool?

    1. My mouse is for pointing and for fragging other people.

    2. My calculator is a HP-48 on my phone / desktop.

    This doesn't do either very well.

    A Lego mouse... Ok, aesthetically cool but still useless...

    This...Why would I need one of these?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Old hat

    It's been done before. Not only that, but I used to have a "ball" mouse that was also a telephone. Flip up the transparent dial pad cover (where the palm of the hand rested) and it answered the phone!

    Unfortunately, it made using the mouse while on the phone, quite difficult and I eventually stopped using it. It also needed an extra cable between the mouse and the wall socket, and also another from the mouse to the ear piece. Totally impractical, but a good idea at the time.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Almost..

    Shame there are no arrow keys on it. I like the idea of a mouse type gaming controller duel thingy. The calc idea is a bit naff but a numeric keypad with arrows would be most awesome.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      I have a Genius Navigator 365 Laser Mouse

      for my netbook - it's a clamshell mouse with a gamepad inside. It's not the best gamepad, but it's better than nothing and the laser tracking is superlative. I'd really pay good money for a bigger meatier one for my desktop.

      This calculator one just looks desperate and pointless, like those 90s mousepads with a credit-card calculator in the corner.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    I thought you said it was Canon?

    Then you said it was Genius; I'm confused.

    See what I did there?

    Also: if they added a pencil sharpener, folding ruler and thing-for-getting-stones-out-of-horses-hoofs it would become TRULY useful.

  19. Kevin Lloyd
    Thumb Down

    I'm not fussed...

    ...either about the calculator functionality but purely in terms of ergonomics the peripheral looks like a step back to the mid-nineties.

  20. BorkedAgain
    Thumb Up

    You guys are such bitches.

    This is brilliant.

    It does need a clock, though. And maybe a thermometer. And some seashells. And "Greetings from Blackpool" painted on the front...

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Mouse + adder

    Mouse + adder = madder

    How appropriate :-)

  22. Tom 35

    Next?

    crossbreed mongoose with adder?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Came here

    Came here expecting horrific crossbreed chimera ready to devour all before it.

    Left disappointed.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Come on Casio

    Clearly there's a need for casio to bring out the mousewatch - "its not just a watch, its a mouse too"

  25. Red Bren
    Megaphone

    No! No!! FFS NOOO!!!

    If you've got a computer at your desk, why the hell do you need a piddling calculator? If you can't use a calculator app, you really have no business anywhere near a computer. In fact it should be a standard interview question - "Do you want a computer on your desk or a calculator and typewriter?"

    Sorry for ranting. I once had a boss who insisted that spreadsheets were manually filled in with figures calculated on desktop calculators because he didn't trust the computer to give the "correct" answers, i.e. without the rounding errors.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Because Microsoft have just cordially fucked up the Windows calculator

      Such that you can't access power functions and base conversion without erasing the result in between. £1 spent in the local pound shop gets me a fully scientific calculator with bin and hex that's a lot easier to use than Windows anyway. But this mouse one looks even worse than Microsoft's offering.

    2. TeeCee Gold badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: No! No!! FFS NOOO!!!

      Spot on that man!

      The clue's in the picture. It's aimed at the iSheep who find it difficult to use a calculator application, 'cos the overpriced piss-poor excuse for a keyboard that came with their computer lacks a numeric keypad.

      I can see how it *might* be of use with a notebook keyboard, but it's way too bloody large to consider as a notebook mouse where size-in-bag and usability-on-right-thigh are the two main drivers.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        If you want a numeric keypad...

        ...and you want a Mac, you simply select the non-Bluetooth keyboard (that comes with a numeric keypad and two USB ports) at the time of purchase. Simple.

  26. Gert Selkobi
    Meh

    Not quite...

    As has been said, if they'd left the screen and calculator functions out of it and concentrated on making this a mouse that doubles as a numeric keypad (or vice versa if that helps to market it), primarily targeted at laptop users, then it would be a sure-fire winner.

    Almost genius, but not quite.

  27. Ryleh
    Alert

    white adder

    This white mouse is so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasle!

    So does it come in black... black adder for all!

  28. Wyrdness

    Numeric keypad too?

    If it also works as a numeric keypad, then it could be great for 3D software such as Blender which makes heavy use of the numeric keypad to change 3D views. Especially if you're using one of those new Apple keyboards that doesn't have a numeric keypad.

    1. William Towle
      Linux

      Re: Numeric keypad too?

      If it works as a numeric keypad, then you could also use shift-ctrl-numlock to control the mouse pointer with it... ;)

      // Tux: depending on your choice of OS, obv.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can it...

    Can you select a number and have it copied into the calculator, do some calculations and then paste back? Anything less is no better than a cheap mouse plus cheap calc.

  30. druck Silver badge
    FAIL

    Windows Calculator - you are joking?

    Use Windows Calculator - you are joking? The program that produces two different results for 2+3*4 depending on whether it's showing a simple or complex button layout. (Standard gives the wrong answer of 20, and you have to switch to scientific to get the right answer of 14).

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