CES: Get Your MoGo Mousing

The ultra-slim MoGo Mouse fits into your notebook's
PC Card slot for storage. Photos © Newton Peripherals

The 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show was full of strange sights and the MoGo Mouse Bluetooth wireless mouse from Newton Peripherals LLC was certainly one of them.
The MoGo resembles a conventional wireless mouse about as much as a globe resembles a fold-out map. Instead of a rounded shape, the $69.95 MoGo is flat and rectangular and is sized so it fits into a notebook computer's PC Card slot--a space often left empty now that many notebooks come with a modem, an Ethernet port and wireless networking already built in. While the mouse is parked in the slot it recharges its battery from the notebook's battery.
To use the MoGo Mouse, you pop it out of the PC Card slot and extend its plastic feet. In practice your fingers end up at the same angle they would be with a conventional mouse.
The appeal of the MoGo is that it relieves your travel bag of the clutter of a mouse on the loose. The caveat is that in order to use the MoGo, your notebook has to support Bluetooth wireless networking. While many new notebooks do, most do not.
Fortunately, adding Bluetooth functionality to a notebook or a PC isn't hard. Devices such as Belkin Corp.'s Bluetooth USB Adapter and Cisco Systems, Inc.'s Linksys Bluetooth USB Adapter USBBT100 plug into any USB port and are easy to configure. The MoGo Mouse will reach stores in the first quarter of 2006, according to Newton Peripherals.
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