Solar Powered Mouse Forces Geeks Outside

I guess everything is going solar powered these days as evidenced by the solar powered mouse. I’m betting I’m not the only one wondering WTF with this mouse. I mean it’s not like my mouse is using lots of power, my notebook mouse goes for 6 months on one set of AAA batteries.

At any rate the Sole Mio is being developed by a group in the Netherlands and they have been working on it for four years. The mouse uses 20mA of electricity and can store about 300mAh of power onboard. The developers think the mouse has the potential to save several hundred million batteries annually on a global scale. The problem I see is that this mouse might mean geeks have to take their mouse outside to charge. Not everyone has a sunny location or a window nearby for charging. Perhaps it can generate electricity for lights in the home like solar calculators, I don’t have that information.