The multi-purpose mouse is in the house

Ah, the humble pointing device mus musculus . It’s come a long way since its development by Douglas Englebart in the late 1960s. Now we have mice with optical sensors, even lasers . They have three, four, seven buttons; wheels; trackballs. You name it. But how can we make them even more useful?

Start sticking miscellaneous features in, that’s how. For example: a USB hub. Actually, that’s not a bad idea, especially for a travel mouse. A pointing device is essential for many who are on the go, and taking up one of your valuable USB ports with one can be quite a hassle. So the DN-UM2B adds a two-port USB hub on its USB connector. Clever.

But wait, there’s more. What if what you really need is not just a USB hub, but a microphone . Let’s face it, even though some notebook computers have built in microphones, their quality is usually severely lacking. And you can’t really do anything about that. But the DN-UM3K adds not only a dual-port USB hub, but a microphone that plugs into your PCs microphone in jack.

At least Scotty would be happy.

[via Engadget ]