Microsoft has now developed mice with wheel buttons that tilt left and right, so not only can you scroll up and down but you can also scroll horizontally (with the appropriate drivers, I’ll assume).

This is sort of cool. I’ve often wondered what, if anything, could ever replace the mouse (and keyboard) as the logical way of getting a computer to do what you want. While this doesn’t actually replace the mouse, it does enhance it in a logical direction.

I remember reading a couple of years ago about a device that was hooked up via some kind of EEG, and a computer, to a guy who was then able to make a cursor on a monitor move up, down, left, or right simply by thinking about it. Something about what he was thinking altered his brain wave patterns sufficiently enough for the software to detect the change and move the cursor. It’s hard for me to imagine anything other than a sophisticated version of this replacing our current mice. (Unfortunately, I don’t have a link to this bit of news, nor have I heard anything since then about how research might have progressed.)