Scanner Mouse!

It's about time! (Why didn't I think of that?)

Gimmick. Nothing will beat a good desktop flatbed scanner. I'm sure we all have fond memories of thoe "handheld" scanners from the mid-1990s...

And it's been done before: someone modified the (monochrome) optical sensor in their mouse to return the actual data. The thing about the video you linked to is the flashy demo and built-in OCR (and social features, natch), otherwise there's nothing that indicates this is a particularly good mouse in any other way.

Here: http://spritesmods.com/?art=mouseeye

@W3bbo:

You know where my flatbed scanner is?  I don't.  Because I don't use it.  It takes up room and I rarely use it because it takes up room and I put it away some place.  I literally don't know where it is.  A mouse scanner would just be there when I finally want to use it to scan receipts in.  That's all I want.  Scan and disappear.  Will this get rid of flatbed scanners?  Probably not.  Except a ubiquitous Kinect 3 in my monitor. 

As for it being done before - as well as this?  Not that I've seen, and Sprites mods is worlds away in quality.  Even the page you linked to calls it, "a ghetto b&w handscanner". 

TL;DR:  I'm buying one. 

@Richard.Hein: hard to tell from a video, but the quality of the scanner looks good. My only issue with the device is that considering the number of documents I scan vs the miles I push the pointer around the screen, I'd rather have an excellent mouse that also happens to be an ok scanner than the other way around.

I've had one of those handheld scanners in the 90's. One of those things you had to manually drag across an image in strips, and then the software would sort of stitch it together. It was kind of a pain to use because you had to drag it slowly and evenly and then the Windows 3.11 software would spend a few minutes on your 386 to stitch everything. This looks way easier to use.

The thing is that I just don't really need the mouse part of it. I've got a good mouse already. I could totally see myself using a mouse-sized handheld scanner, though, because I don't feel like reserving space on my desk for a flatbed scanner I use twice a year.

I don't think is any more convenient than the flatbed scanner built into my printer. Still, it's a neat secondary use of the mouse.

@spivonious: That's another thing I don't know the location of.

1 hour ago,Richard.Hein wrote

@spivonious: That's another thing I don't know the location of.

That's ok.  I don't know where his printer is, either.

Scanning, for me, is something I only need to do once every few years and then I have to do a bunch of it all at once. 

@Bas: Ha! I evaluated this guy back in the day. Neat but not really functional

I think it is very very neat. The scanning is very quick and it also has build-in image to text feature. I would certainly get it, so I don't have to walk to my dads scanner and all those those extra steps. And it works perfectly in a portable business trip setting. Very very attractive design. +++++ to LG, simple and yet very effective.

6 hours ago,spivonious wrote

I don't think is any more convenient than the flatbed scanner built into my printer. Still, it's a neat secondary use of the mouse.

I think there is a great future in the product as an alternative to a flatbed scanner, or photographing documents with your phone's camera, but building it into a mouse does nothing for a product: it will never be a good enough mouse to a replace a user's mouse.

Nice invention. I could definitely see myself using this from time to time. Actually, my secret dream is to have a mini printer in my dumbphone too.

@ScottWelker: that's it! Incredible. I have to see if I can find that thing somewhere in the attic.

@Bas: I'm fairly sure I had exactly that same scanner at some point.

The real question is how well does it work on your butt?

5 minutes ago,DeathBy​VisualStudio wrote

The real question is how well does it work on your butt?

It takes out all of the fun of scanning or photocopying your bum when drunk during the office Christmas party. Now it'll just be awkward as you have to ask someone to carefully rub this scanner over your nether-regions.

@W3bbo: then again when they come out with a 3D version of it things could get interesting again...