Researchers in the United Kingdom have developed software for Windows Mobile & Symbian based Nokia S60 mobile devices that allows users to use their smartphone with an in-built camera as a bluetooth optical mouse, allowing users to swivel a camera phone to scroll or move items on a computer screen.

Communicating with a PC via Bluetooth wireless technology, users can either move the cell phone or use a stylus on the cell phone’s screen to also scroll through a PC screen. After communicating a cell phone’s field of view through a live camera feed to a computer via Bluetooth, the PC establishes the coordinates of its monitor, which are then sent to a camera phone. Once the camera phone registers the image on the cell phone and recognizes the display coordinates set by the PC through image processing technology, the computer knows exactly what the phone can see, which sets the stage to scroll a PC.

Users can then move the phone or use a stylus on a touch screen to scroll a PC or move items. The PC and camera phone work together to continuously reposition a PC monitor’s coordinates as the phone moves, allowing the cell phone to scroll a PC from any position in a room.

The software is still in its infancy as the image capture and processing rate on the cell phone is quite slow, and so you can not move the cell phone as quickly as you would like to.

Currently, there is no link to download the prototype application for S60 or Windows Mobile.