There are an estimated one billion people hooked up to the Internet around the world, and the vast majority of those people will use a computer to do so. And what comes hand in hand with a computer? The humble mouse, a peripheral essential to doing almost anything on a computer, but which is very rarely cited for being the marvel that it is. And according to some, the mouse could be on its way out.

This year marks the 40 year anniversary for the mouse, with Dr Douglas Engelbart inventing it while working for the Stanford Research Institute in 1968. Unfortunately for him, he never received a penny for his invention, and the patent ran out in 1987, just before the computer revolution really hit the mainstream.

At this point in time, the mouse is utterly indispensable, being used by millions of people all around the world. However, there are the beginnings of some new technological advances around, which have lead some to predict the death of the mouse in the next 3-5 years. According to the BBC, a Gartner analyst, thinks new ways of interacting with computers, and technology, will take over in the very near future, and make the mouse completely obsolete.

Steve Prentice stated:

You’ve got Panasonic showing forward facing video in the home entertainment environment. Instead of using a conventional remote control you hold up your hand and it recognises you have done that,

Sony and Canon and other video and photographic manufacturers are using face recognition that recognises your face in real time. And it recognises even when you smile.

You even have emotive systems where you can wear a headset and control a computer by simply thinking and that’s a device set to hit the market in September.

The emotive system mentioned is the Emotiv EPOC headset, which is likely to cost around $299 when it launches later this year. It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer, meaning that operating a cursor on a screen could become possible purely by thinking about it moving. It also has uses in the gaming industry, and would be a major step up from the current level of motion-sensing technology seen on the Nintendo Wii.

The Wii console, and its control methods, as well as smart phones such as the Apple iPhone, with their touch screens, are just the first rung on a very tall ladder which will end with the mouse being seen as a massively backwards technology, and merely a historical fact.

I personally don’t think this will happen in quite as short a time frame as the analyst predicts, but technology is certainly moving on a quite a pace, and interactivity is now a key element of the future. The mouse has endured for nigh on 40 years, but everything has to die eventually, and it could be the turn of the mouse and keyboard combination next.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 4:02 pm under Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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