As if one mouse wasn’t enough, Microsoft is in the process of developing software that will allow you to have multiple mouses on a single PC, known as Multipoint technology, and you’ll find that it may serve an interesting purpose. 

The idea was inspired by Joyojeet Pal, a PhD student from Berkeley Institute. In 2005, he had visited a school run by Azim Premji Foundation and noticed that several students were sharing one PC. While the most dominant, aggressive kid was handling the mouse, the rest were merely watching.

Joyojeet met up with assistant researcher Udai Singh Pawar and assistant MD of Microsoft Research India, Kentaro Toyama, who he told of his experiences. The two from Microsoft saw a possible opportunity in it, and made plans to develop a system where each student would have their own mouse, and all could operate simultaneously on a single PC; MultiPoint technology was thereby spawned.

“Normally, it is the oldest or the brightest child that takes charge of the mouse. Since there is no direct contact with the PC, the others automatically tend to lose interest. So we decided to give them all a mouse each. This made a huge difference to their receptiveness,” said Toyama.

Microsoft is currently acting upon this, to convert the idea into software by releasing the MultiPoint Software Development Kit which will be available for download in January 2007.

One could only image the chaos that comes with a maximum of 120 mice connected to a single system; although, many times would I have found it useful in my home recording studio. I once tried to ‘rig’ up such a system which ended up with disastrous results.

Typical, real world applications are not ready for Multipoint. There is just no feasible way 2 people can share one application without interfering with each other; Microsoft has thought of this, and is already planning to develop some interactive content based around MultiPoint.

Multiple mice are not bound by the same pointer; there are additional pointers involved, allowing a true multi-tasking environment on the users’ end; although, if this technology is utilized in an efficient manner, let us hope that it is incorporated using wireless mice. Can you imagine?

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Entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 5:23 am under Microsoft, Technology.

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