Mouseless – Control the pointer on the screen with an invisible mouse

Mouseless is a an invisible computer mouse that lets you control the pointer on the screen using your hand but without touching any physical mouse or hardware.

This awesome invisible Mouse is created by a MIT PhD student, Pranav Mistry. The Mouseless invention removes the requirement of having a physical mouse altogether but still provides the intuitive interaction of a physical mouse that we are familiar with.

This advanced technology provides range of interaction between the computer and the user such as zoom in/out, volume control, brightness. In addition, the use of multiple laser beams would allow for recognition of a wider range of free hand motions, enabling novel gestures that the hardware mouse cannot support.

Mouseless has an Infrared (IR) laser beam with line cap and an Infrared camera. Both IR laser and IR camera are embedded in the computer. The laser beam module is modified with a line cap and placed such that it creates a plane of IR laser just above the surface the computer sits on.

The user cups their hand, as if a physical mouse was present underneath and the laser beam lights up the hand which is in contact with the surface. The IR camera detects those bright IR blobs using computer vision. As the user moves their hand the cursor on screen moves accordingly.

The change in the position and arrangements of these blobs are interpreted as mouse cursor movement and mouse clicks. When the user taps their index finger, the size of the blob changes and the camera recognizes the intended mouse click.

There is not any news when it will be available in market for users but a fully functional working prototype system of Mouseless could be built in approximately $20.