Carnegie Mellon University researcher Chris Harrison has given PC mouse control to mobile phones. A University of California professor has modifed a mobile into a microscope. You'll soon be able to turn on your AC and unlock your car with your cell. Kasmin Fernandes examines how the cell phone is cannibalising all other gadgets

For 22 year-old Pranav Ashar, Google Nexus One has made the organiser, calendar, watch and PC redundant. "I rarely use the PC to check mail, browse, Skype friends abroad, egosurf or look up something anymore," says the founder-director of Taj Enlighten Film Society, who is eagerly waiting for the 3G iPad he ordered the day it was launched.


Self-confessed nomophobe Parikshat Wadhwani uses his BlackBerry for
"everything possible". "It doesn't leave my side," says the final year BMM student. PIC/ Vikas Munipalle

"The phone does for me what five gadgets put together would," says the gadget lover who likes "showing off" his Google Nexus One, especially Goggles. It's an app -- currently available for Android devices running Android 1.6 and above -- that lets you use pictures taken with your mobile phone to search the web. It's ideal for things that aren't easy to describe in words. There's no need to type or speak your query -- all you have to do is open the app, snap a picture, and wait for your search results.

Self-confessed nomophobe Parikshat Wadhwani uses his Blackberry for "everything possible". "It doesn't leave my side," says the final year BMM student.

Replaces PC mouse
Even the PC mouse market may become extinct, what with a Carnegie Mellon University researcher's new innovation that gives mouse control to small mobile phones. Chris Harrison, a 25 year-old researcher at the university's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII), developed the Minput method (see video) with his faculty advisor, Scott Hudson.



Click here to watch the video

By installing a pair of optical sensors on the back of a mobile phone, they found that the entire device could emulate a computer mouse when it was placed against a surface, a piece of clothing or the palm of a hand.

Says Chris, "Twisting a Minput-equipped phone might allow you to zoom in or out of a photo or document, while flicking the device against a surface, for instance, enables you to switch between photos or between photo galleries."

Minput also permits high-precision positioning -- such as selecting a sentence of text from a paragraph -- that would be difficult to perform on a small touchscreen. At about $1 a piece, the optical sensors wouldn't add much to the cost of a mobile phone.