wannabecoder's question about accessing hardware

hm, just a try:

I’d need either of the following:

a: the knowledge how to get a stream of pictures from 2 webcams at once… best would be synchronized.

or

b: input from 2 additional mice. The mice will not be used for the cursor (and they shouldn’t interact with it), I rather need to record the movement of all four axes.

Has anyone done something like that for Windows or Linux?

thanks in advance.