Optical mouses freed us from mouse pads and the chore of cleaning gunk from our mouse’s innards every few weeks. But they don’t work well on transparent or highly polished surfaces. With its Performance Mouse MX, Logitech solves this problem by borrowing a trick from microscopic imaging: dark-field microscopy, often employed by biologists examining low-contrast specimens such as live amoebas. Unlike other optical mouses, which track their position by looking at the direct reflection of a laser that illuminates the surface beneath the mouse, Logitech’s mouse ignores the reflection completely. Instead, it looks at the light scattered off minute imperfections and particles on the surface. This mouse works even on a glass desktop.

Credit: Joshua Scott