The Apple Store wasn't big enough for a Magic and a Mighty, so someone up there decided to stripe the Mightiness off your name. Relegated to a dark hole in the store, eating the crumbles that others don't want, waiting for a hungry cat to end your days, your price is still $49, $20 away from reaching the Magic.

But the worse thing is that you are not special anymore, you Mighty Mouse. Go away. [Apple Store—Thanks Hanford Lemoore]

You may have heard by now that Apple no longer has claim to the name Mighty Mouse, since small-volume mouse maker Man & Machine, who had labeled its own pointer "Mighty Mouse," managed to wiggle its way through all the red tape to a successful trademark application. There's a lot of messiness involved, but the truth of the matter is a) it was dumb for Apple to borrow a name from a cartoon character in the first place, and b) the Mighty Mouse was one of Apple's worst products to date. In the end, I'm thinking there's a hint of karma in this reversal of fortune. Hopefully Apple's next mouse will be mightier in deed than in name. [Engadget]

Even though movie-poster regulars such as Owen Gleiberman and Peter Travers have labeled it "freaky and terrifying" and "a potent frightfest" respectively, studio execs seem skittish about releasing Paramount's Paranormal Activity. Instead of manning up and giving it a nationwide release, the studio has asked potential ticket buyers to declare their intentions here. I'm all for crowdsourcing experiments, but this just seems like studio cowardice at its most yeller. They call it "the first-ever major film release decided by you"—it sure won't be the last. [Movie Site]

iPhone owners love to crap all over AT&T customer service whenever they get near a JD Power & Associates survey, but apparently, for the 1.5 million who get TV programming from the T, service couldn't be sweeter. Good ole JD released the results, naming AT&T best in the west and south, Verizon tops in the east, and WOW! numero uno in the north central region. (No, World of Warcraft didn't start a cable company... or did it?) It might not startle you to learn that none of the cable and satellite carriers who actually provide TV service to the majority of the nation appear in the (positive) results. Just wait till you serve as many people with TV as you serve with cellphones, AT&T. Then let's see where you stand. [JD Power]

Danny Sullivan, king of the search engine watchers, pinned down Sergey Brin after a Google event and showed him some bad results. Like if you type "car rental," all the major agencies are there, but when you type "california car rental," many companies disappear (including my personal favorite, Hertz). He also asked why searching "search engines" brought up discussion of search engines, but "search engine" just brought up many older search sites—notably excluding Google itself. Brin said people probably don't search for Google on Google, but Sullivan disagreed. I was actually under the impression that if you go to Google and type "google," you break the internet, so in either case, I'm just glad to be enlightened. [Search Engine Land]

And, you gotta figure it's soon, since Apple takes the FCC's leaky, leaky ways into account when it launches products. Word was that the new iMacs could drop anytime in the next month, so it all kind of adds up: new iMacs, with fresh aluminum multitouch mice and keyboards.

Or it could all be a bunch of rumor poo. [FCC via Engadget]

According to AppleInsider, the mouse's nipple—the ball in the middle that gets useless after a while thanks to dirt and sweat—is going away. Instead, the mightier mouse will use a multitouch solution to replace it, likely integrated with the housing itself.

Their sources also say that it will likely at last abandon the white polycarbonate look in favor of an aluminum finish. I would certainly like a metal mouse, but I will not hold my breath about any rumors anymore. [AppleInsider]

I've had no problems with my Mighty Mouse, except for the stupid nipple/wheel that always clogs up with dust and makes scrolling impossible, so this to me is a very welcome change. – Louis Ramirez

Next-gen Apple Mouse May Dump Scroll Ball for Touch Housing [Apple Insider]

Essentially, the "Mightier Mouse" will use two different mechanisms to track movement. The first, that we already know and love, is the optical tracking sensor. This will stay intact. The new feature will be the accelerometer, as you've seen in the Wiimote. The patent explains that motion detection is a far more energy efficient tool of tracking than older methods, and when periodically compared (even calibrated?) to the optical information, can function with accuracy.

I'm all for energy efficiency and the continuous innovation of the products we use every day. Plus, I just love the word "accelerometer". We'll see how this plays out. – Mark Wilson

Patent Info [via slashgear]

The Mouse itself features a laser sensor, microscroll wheel and 1600dpi tracking mechanism. It is small, smooth and unfortunately, corded. Essentially, MacMice took the flaws of the MightyMouse (yes, all of them) fixed them and released it for $30—or less than half of that MightyPOS. The white model is currently available and MacMice is taking pre-orders for the black model. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [MacMice]

Even though MacMice has designed this latest Bluetooth pointing device from scratch, it somehow, like all of its other products, looks to us like a butt crack. We also can't help but notice the way the mouse appears to be humping its charger.

Anyway, the company says the Mouse BT II's small scrolling wheel, which works with both Macs and PCs, is highly precise, and gives you a "silky smooth feel." Cop your silky smooth feel for $70. – Charlie White

The Mouse BT II Product Page [MacMice]

Funny thing is that after syncing, the mouse seems to using less power when the mouse is moving (!), i.e. when the LED is off (~.0285 Amps) versus when it is not moving and the LED is on (~.0450 Amps).

Quite a lot, it seems. After the procedure was finished, people pointed out that the light only came on because the laser was out-of-focus, and that his procedure didn't save quite as much power on the mouse as he had thought. It still extends the life of the battery, just not as dramatically as the 0.0450 vs 0.0285 figures.

Check out the link to see how to do this to your mouse. – Jason Chen

Apple's Bluetooth Mighty Mouse Reduced Power Hack [Life Of Ram via Hackaday]

According to Nick there is no visual laser emitted from the bottom and the only illumination on the mouse is a green light meaning that the battery has a charge. The mouse itself weighs a tad more than its predecessor. And for the review:

This is honestly the best wireless mouse I've used. I was also able to get a $7 student discount, which still isn't reflected on the website.

Flickr Gallery [Via Nick Starr]

It has Bluetooth technology, a laser tracking engine, innovative scroll ball and button, touch sensitive top shell, force-sensing side buttons and it is fully customizable in OS X. It is available over at the Apple Store for $69 and includes free shipping! Weee! Thanks, Tim. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [Apple Store]

However, unless Apple has addressed the problems that current users like John have encountered—busted scroll ball, right/left click confusion—new users may want to stay away. – Jason Chen

FCC Documents [FCC]

Anyone else having this problem? Is it a known issue? Readers, please commentate. – John Biggs

Apple Mighty Mouse [arstechnica]
Jobs' Apple Launches 'Mighty Mouse' [Forbes]
Apple Mighty Mouse: First UK Review [The Register]
Apple Mighty Mouse Review [Apple Insider]
Apple Reinvents "The Wheel" [Trusted Reviews]

Once we separated the top and bottom halves of the mouse, things started to get exciting. On the bottom half of the mouse, we observed the presence of a speaker (yes, it's true!), switches that trigger the side squeeze buttons, the mechanism that generates the main click of the mouse itself, and even an empty spot with a symbol showing where a capacitor would be (hmm, what sort of Mac rumors could we start with that one?).

A speaker? Vibrational haptics? Sing-along with mice?

Dissecting Mighty Mouse [ArsTechnica]