Wireless Mouse

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What Does Wireless Mouse Mean?

A wireless mouse is a hardware input device used to interface with a computer system. While mouses (or mice, either pluralization is accurate) have historically required cords, the wireless option became popular in the early 2000s, when they started incorporating radio frequency and Bluetooth technology.

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A wireless mouse is also known as a cordless mouse.

Techopedia Explains Wireless Mouse

The modern mouse has evolved from a trackball-like pointing device used in radar and tracking systems by the Allied forces during World War II. The commercialized version was developed decades later, and became a household device during the gradual rise of the personal computer. Like virtually all common technological devices, a wireless version became increasingly marketable as the standard version grew in popularity.

Around the turn of the millennium, major tech brands like Apple and Logitech began manufacturing cordless mouses using Bluetooth and radio frequency, the latter of which requiring a USB receiver. Wireless mouses have since become standard in many different personal computing environments, adding the convenience of wire-free operation as well as the enhanced ergonomic opportunity of not being tethered with the main computing device.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.