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33 comments

HP Shipping a Mouse That Connects Using Wi-Fi

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US

Wireless mice are pretty handy, but not everyone can utilize them the same way. Some run off Bluetooth, which requires for the computer to have Bluetooth hardware – not a standard part. An alternative is for an external USB dongle that adds a Bluetooth or RF receiver.

HP is now selling a third option that uses a Wi-Fi connection, which these days is standard on laptops, to add a wireless mouse on a Windows 7 system without the requirement of Bluetooth or use of any additional dongles.

We surmise that the HP Wi-Fi mobile mouse connects to the Windows 7 machine's Wi-Fi hardware directly through an ad hoc connection. This should not upset the computer's ability to connect to an access point for internet connectivity.

HP boasts that its Wi-Fi mouse has up to nine months of battery life from two AA batteries. It is now selling for $49.99.

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  • 4
    arakis , June 20, 2011 8:44 PM
    I just noticed a virutal wireless adapter on a 7 laptop one of my users had. They said they didn't do anything to add it, so after a little googling I found out about something pretty cool Microsoft made to make this device possible. They call it MultiNet and it is already in Win7 and will appear after a driver update for your wifi adapter. It is a virtualization approach that allows your adapter to function in two contexts at once. You can connect to an AP, then another AP or host ad-hoc connections for sharing or in this case device connections. Really smart to see such an established idea as virtualized networking turned into such a game changer. Wonder when Apple will claim to invent it? MS tried up to four simultaneous contexts, but the switching made the latency unbearable and it is now capped to two contexts at once.
  • 3
    anonymous@guest , June 20, 2011 8:50 PM
    Not nice at all, now we have yet another thing polluting wifi needlessly.
  • 3
    erichoyt , June 20, 2011 7:14 PM
    This is pretty cool....it's one less piece of hardware to keep track of at the minimum.

    Does anyone know why it has taken so long for a wi-fi mouse to be released? I assume the problems that were previously preventing this are fixed - or are there potential pitfalls?
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