The Daily Mail has got all excited about a revolution in technology that it says spells the end of RSI.

"Help is now at hand for the thousands of office workers who suffer from repetitive strain injury in their hands and arms," the paper says, before adding rather disappointingly, "A computer mouse operated by your feet."

There is a nagging idea at the back of our minds that perhaps this will only send the problem down below the deskline, but who are we to judge? We get someone else to do the mouse clicking anyway.

The foot mouse, which is made and designed by Keytools but doesn't actually appear on their web site at the moment, uses a slipper that you wear to control movement and a couple of pedals to replace the old left and right click buttons.

Keytools company sales manager Phil Guest is quoted as saying, "As the number of employees working intensively with computers has increased, so has attention to their workstation environment become more significant. Musculoskeletal disorders amongst computer users now occur on such a scale that the cost of lost work time and the sourcing of occupational health support services has become a serious issue. The foot mouse is a great way to cut down the risk of suffering from one of these disorders."

Having seen the pictures, and worked with human beings, we suspect that the foot pedal will only be used by a few office workers who have specific medical problems that we should not be sniggering at. But we can spare a chuckle for the Daily Mail staffers that are forced to wear them.

12 Jan 2009