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Computer Mouse Heading For Extinction
slatterz writes "The computer mouse is set to die out in the next five years and will be usurped by touch screens and facial recognition, analysts believe. Steven Prentice, vice president and Gartner Fellow, told the BBC that devices such as Nintendo's MotionPlus for the Wii and Apple's iPhone point the way to the future, offering greater accuracy in motion detection."
But in practice, it will take a lot more than 5 years. 25 years, maybe.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
hahahhahahahaha I call bullshit on that. Taking all bets.
Because the mouse is old will never replace the fact it is an incredibly intuitive and powerful HID. You can use it all day without getting sore (mostly) and best of all, it wont accidentally trash half your files if you sneeze and move your hand at the same time.
meh, that just stupid. So I can hold my hand up in the air to get 3-d motion on a 2-d interface? Or rest my hand on the desktop and get 2-d motion in a 2-d interface... hmm, tough choice.
Sure, touch screens have advantages in some areas, but overall they are not a replacement for a mouse.
Not only that, but 5 years? Thats silly.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The last thing I'd want is fingerprints smudged all over my monitor. I'll still with my mouse, thanks.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
Touchcreens just aren't accurate enough for real computers. They are used for things like phones because there's no convenient way to put a mouse on a phone.
The cake is a pie
So, to increase accuracy, I'm supposed to slap at the screen with my pizza-slopped fingers? Facial recognition? Maybe banging my head on my desk will act as a signal to restart Windows yet again.
Somebody who has some obscure input device, which will "kill the mouse", probably paid Gartner to conduct yet another bogus study that seeks to convince people what technology to use as opposed to demonstrate what they are actually using.
will be usurped by touch screens and facial recognition
I guess the guy never used touch screens, that's why he is so sure. And nobody "used" facial recognition so far, that makes it even a better idea...
The most basic issue here is the interface. People don't write with facial contortions. We write with our hands. Why? Because our hands are the most precise tools that we have, and they are well built for the task.
However our hands (and arms) are not good for holding them, for hours, in front of a vertical surface of a screen. Many screens are positioned so that the "touch" interface is therefore impossible. Besides, there isn't enough precision in our fingers even if we wear claw-like stylus. Mouse can be, and often is configured to translate larger movement of the sensor into a very precise, sub-millimeter movement of the cursor. This is necessary in most applications, selecting from a menu being an example. Touch screens do not allow this "magnification" of the movement, as well as any non-linear response (that is also common.)
The input devices will likely change over time, but unless our bodies change also the mouse or a touchpad interface will remain useful for a long time, just like a keyboard. I personally believe that we will have direct brain control over the mouse and keyboard functions earlier than we will be able to replace the mouse with a better mouse - it's a simpler task. It's also probably possible to design a crude AI that is just enough to decode speech; but the speech interface is not very efficient either - try to talk for an hour and see what happens to your throat.
All these predictions are just noise made by people who want to attract undeserved attention. There is nothing wrong with a mouse as it is now, and there should be no rush to replace it with something that is not tested and by all reasoning can't even work. The mouse works, we test it for decades by now.
Never will, who wants to talk all day? Though I personally feel like voice recognition will become a supplement. I can imagine saying "close window" etc as being useful. Though, if you aren't alone, you are going to look like you have lost your mind. I also don't want someone walking past being able to tell my computer to trash half my files :)
This is, as always, wrong. Analysts never get this stuff right. The iPhone has shown the ability of a touchscreen with multi-touch to have a great interface. Notice that the iPhone was never a device with a mouse. Phone don't have mice (except for trackballs on some blackberries).
I'd love some of that multi-touch goodness in OS X. Let my trackpad start doing it. But let's get real here. We need mice.
All our interfaces are designed around them and keyboards. They are cheap (under $5 for a simple optical). They are precise. They are familiar. They need very little physical movement (just tiny wrist movements). A tablet gives you the precision a mouse does. I'd say they are far more likely to take over than generic touchscreen. Perhaps combos like Wacom Centiqs.
I'm w aiting for the FPS that figures out a way to use touchscreens for precision aiming.
The Wii has shown us some great things, but that's for games. How many people do you think want to waggle their way through creating powerpoint presentations?
I've got a Wii. What do some the best control schemes often use it for? That's right... a mouse! LostWinds (just finished, great game) uses it as a pointing device. Metroid Prime 3 uses it for aiming much like a mouse. Zack & Wiki (when not performing motions) uses it like a mouse. Every menu in every game uses it like a mouse. The console's own menu uses it like a mouse. And when Pikmin 3 comes out I'm willing to bet a fair bit of money that it will use the control mostly as... a mouse.
The mouse is just about the perfect 2D interface. There is probably a reason we've been using them for over 25 years (it's been about that long since the Macintosh came out, and I'm well aware they were available before that). When we get a real 3D interface (like some kind of hologram projecting surface/table) then we may need a new input device some of the time, but for now, the mouse will be around for a very long while.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Facial recognition doesn't even work at all, even on specialized HW, SW, and selected test subjects. In 5 years, maybe it might work occasionally. Not replace the mouse. Nor will any of those other brand new special skills input devices. Hell, the majority of PCs even now are probably about 5 years old, and we're about to plunge into a "recession" that won't even have the vast debt to prop it up that the past decade had.
Gartner has always been nothing but a PR mill to market "mindshare" of directions in computer industry trends. I've never read a Gartner report or employee (or "Fellow", which must really take bribing) that was anything other than "Big Computer Corp X wishes this report would come true".
Think about the gaming magazine "reporting" you read, and how it's all PR. Big computer corps, like Apple, Microsoft, Dell - and probably Sony, Nintendo etc, all trying to become "computer" corps or their synthesis - have even more money to buy reporting. And Gartner isn't even saying it's "journalism". It's like those 1990s Internet Bubble stockbrokers' in-house "analysts", whose reports always said that whatever stocks the brokerage was vested in would go nowhere but up. In fact, those fake analysts are still doing the same thing, and the market is still a wasteland because of it. Gartner has even less accountability, and even less of a track record of guessing right, rather than wishing hard.
I bet Gartner predicted in 1999 that by 2008 we'd all have Aeron chairs and foosball tables.
--
make install -not war
Must be the same guy that predicted that keyboards would go away, replaced by voice interface.. (although he seems to have finally parted out with this one !)
So the guy is basically envisioning that people are going to go for something like what you can see in the 'Minority Report' flick right ?
Try holding you hands high in the air for 8 hours in a row while not eating or drinking, not speaking to anybody on the phone or in the office or your dear kin.
The guy is basically forgetting one of the main reason the mouse is here (and here to stay too) : it allows multitasking, with your hand comfortably resting on the table (ok.. leading to CTS, but that's another story).. You can work, or have fun while you also interact with the world..
The scroll button on the mouse is also here to stay !
Wii type motion sensor controllers are too tiring and too demanding, touchscreen requires to have you hands up in the air and to be within a few inches of the screen, and facial recognition requires you to focus entirely on the task at hand..
Tss tss.. I wish I was paid to be an 'analyst' to make phony predictions like this guy..
--Ivan
knob many years ago- recently listed as one of the top ten inventions of the 20th century I would think the mouse ranks up pretty high on the list as well. I don't think its going away very soon. In the case of the knob, modern equipment that uses computer menus and such for the same function has been judged by many people to be unwieldy and doesn't easily provide feedback to the user in real time.
Frankly, I think that touch-screens very well replace something: keyboards. I think that things may well go the route of the Optimus keyboards, but more so, reconfiguring themselves based on what you're doing. Many computer users don't even know how to copy and paste (amazing, I know), much less take advantage of Ctrl+S to save. Putting those kinds of controls on a keyboard/screen may prove to be very handy.
#define DRM chmod 000
You can have my mouse when you pry it from my cold, dead, fingers.
The problem is, none of those technologies are superior to mice.
Look at your desktop. Look at where your monitor is. Look at where your mouse is.
Now, what is easier - reaching up to your monitor every time you want to move the cursor, or reaching over to the mouse?
Mice are more precise than fingers. Mice are less strain than pointing devices.
These analysts are idiots. Technology doesn't get replaced with new technology that doesn't work as well as the existing technology. And mice are better at what mice are used for than any other input device available in the desktop/laptop environment.
paintball
Alternative navigation methods have come up from time to time, but apart from the trackball and cursor keys, pretty much all of them have the same drawback: They lead to what's known as the "Gorilla Arm Syndrome". We humans aren't designed to keep our hands extended and not resting on something for any length of time, and after a while, our arms will feel like they've weighted down with lead. Then, when you quit, you feel you have arms the size of a gorilla. And then the pain sets in.
This is the main reason why touch screens never took off any of the three times they were marketed as the new and wonderful thing. My guess is that this is a fourth attempt, which will meet with no more success.
Even graphic tablets can cause G.A.S., unless they allow you to rest your wrist and arm while using it. If they're much bigger than a mouse pad, many people will have problems.
The problem is, no matter how good touchscreens get, your stylus will only ever be as small as the end of your finger. So unless we all are happy to work with super-fun-sized icons and 40 point font, you will need some type of stylus.
There is a bit of work going on to improve the stylus, but theres a LONG way to go to make them easier to use than a mouse. An interesting take on it is www.futuremouse.com. I don't know how easy it is to use, but damn I want one anyway.
Ok, maybe it's just me, but when I see accomplishments such as "Gartner Fellow" bandied about, I tend to think "Mindless Drivel"
I skimmed the article. I may have missed a clause where the entire interview was taken downwind of a chemical plant. However...
Citing the announced Wii Motionplus dongle? Really? We were all ignoring things like the gyromouse and other presentation devices/gimmicks for years because all us desk slaves just didn't have the accuracy we would need that a couple extra accelerometers would afford us?
Facial recognition? That deserves a big "whiskey tango foxtrot", as the only thing I've heard of that is for authentication (granted, it tends to get foiled by showing the camera a picture, but that's a different argument) This is a replacement for the mouse, how?
Touchscreens..because pen computing begat tablet computing begat whatever this new thing is. Did someone fix the problem of gorilla arm and forget to inform the rest of the world?
I must agree with that anti-touching rule. I have a CRT and the fingerprints make me want to kill people.
On another note, what abouT FPS players? Does this analyst really think FPS players (of which there are MANY) will give up their mice? Not to mention the fact that touch screens require far more physical energy and require your arm to be lifted in order to use. Yeah, I don't expect touch screens to be anything more than a convenience where mice aren't available.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
Gartner...Is there anything they can't get wrong?
The mouse very well may die as an input device, but it won't be to a touch screen...Imagine websurfing where you have to use both hands. Imagine the likelihood of everyone in the world moving to something that is basically a niche interface that will require either a tablet-style pc or a wireless flatscreen or something...
Now imagine a bunch of people sitting around with bigger better monitors and more reliable cordless mice. That is a 5 year prediction.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Indeed, I dont think I will ever give up my mouse, at best I might sacrifice it to say a tablet and pen, but a touch screen and voice commands just will never be accurate or quick enough.
As for dirty screens, maybe in 5 years time, they will have developed some sort of nano-gunk-eating stuff you can wipe on your screen that turns the gunk into oxygen, or a revolving protective cover (like outdoor CCTV camers) and then cleans the gunk off and uses it in some cold fusion cell to power the PC...
Besides, since screens seem to be getting smaller, I really dont see that coinciding with the lack of a pointing device, although, if the entire keyboard was a touch-pad (or two touch screens, one screen, one keyboard), and you held down the [use as mouse] button (somewhere at a corner) then release button, etc that might work.
Although, there's also the borg option, have some connection into your forearm muscles or something, or directly to your brain, then maybe the mouse would become "old school".
As for vocal things, that'l never work in public, unless its directional, and in offices you'd probably have to make their cages (cubicals) more air-tight, or have sound proofing, even though phones are common, they aren't quite as pollutive (?) as an almost constant ranting of commands at your PC.
The idea of the mouse dying out is entirely idiotic.
What am I going to do, reach my hand all the way out two feet in front of my face to drag a window across my dual 30" screens from one side to the other? Keep my arms constantly extended out in front of my face so I can touch the monitors?
Monitors are expensive enough as they are right now. Without adding touch screen ability to them. Not to mention that the typical home LCD can't exactly handle lots of finger oils and smudges regularly.
And yes, I'm totally going to write code or navigate the web with a Wii motion controller. Or an iPhone. Or by furrowing my brow on my face.
This guy is no Alvin Toffler. He needs to relenquish futurism to someone better suited.
That's true, but on the more-precise-than-fingers point, I think it's only correct when you're very strict about your definition of "precise". Keep in mind that you're taking a very flexible arm and hand with 4 fingers and an opposable thumb, and using it to control a device that's about as complex as a baseball bat. (Move it thump move it thump.)
Mice are specifically more accurate than fingers when it comes to accurately indicating tiny screen points in a way that strictly logical software can unambiguously interpret, but you're still losing a lot of flexibility of your hand and fingers as an input device just to remove this ambiguity.
Personally I'm skeptical if touch screens (as they are today) will replace mice, and generally I think Gartner's full of crap when it comes to this and just about everything else they claim to predict, but a mouse isn't exactly a perfect device. It just happens to balance accuracy and utility between humans and the current day's computers better than anything else we have at the moment.
...these analysts don't play First-Person Shooters. Excuse me while I spin 180 degrees with my finger on a touch screen and say "fire" only to have my computer automatically dial emergency services.
Touch screens are for portable devices and environments where the use of a mouse is not practicable.
Motion sensing is for gimmicky toys (see: Wii) and high tech applications where a human touch is appropriate.
Voice recognition is for dictation.
The mouse will never truly die, get over it.
Disclaimer: I'm sure there are other uses than what I've outlined, but it's unlikely they'll be widespread consumer products.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Quite obvious the author has zero CAD experience. Try doing a 2D or 3D drawing without a mouse (where you use the wheel to zoom in and out) and you'll find the definition of aggravation.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I have seen the ad for that one touchscreen computer recently released and if I had to reach my arm out for an hour... Even if you use it like a tablet it still can't beat a trackball for minimal amount of movement. And you still have to have a keyboard anyway. At least if you want to type FAST.
I don't want my screen to look like oil slick. Also, it's much easier to click on a very small area (think small icons in an IDE on high res screen) with a mouse than it is to touch it on screen (finger surface area is much larger than tip of mouse pointer).
Did you ever notice how enormous the letters and icons are on touch screens in grocery stores? I prefer to use my screen real estate better.
Facial recognition won't work either. When I program I don't want to have to make expressions and grimaces to make an UI gesture.
I think the keyboard works the best and will always work the best.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
While I completely agree that I don't want anyone touching my screen (yuk!), there ARE better methods of inputting x/y coordinate data than a computer mouse.
...maybe... But what lots of people tend to forget is that "better" isn't always better. For example, you might come up with a device that's main advantage is that it's far more precise than the mouse. But if that extra level of precision isn't helpful to me, and the new device has drawbacks that do matter to me, then suddenly that "better" solution is worse.
So it's not enough for a new solution to be "effective". It has to be better, but it also has to be better in a way that people care about. But even then, that's not enough. It has to be better in a way that people care about to a degree that people will think is worth the drawbacks.
Because there will usually be drawbacks of some kind. Usually a technology that's better in some ways will be worse in others. And even if there are no intrinsic drawbacks, you still have to consider the expense of replacement, and the annoyance of learning a new thing.
For example, I used to use a trackball. I got really used to it enough that sitting down at a computer with a normal mouse threw me off a little. And when people came to use my computer, they were always thrown off by the trackball. It was a minor problem, but enough that when it came time to replace it, I bought a normal mouse.
What's a track-stick? I googled it and came up with a GPS device.
Optical mouse = 10 bucks. Facial recognition + touchscreens = many thousand dollars. So it's one of two options 1)These guys are on crack or 2) it's a buzz campaign for some upcoming gizmo that will be purported as a better input device. Nothing to see here, move on.
Greetings, programs!
My mouse recently died for my main PC, and I've yet to go get a replacement. I've been using my laptop for several days now, and the little track-pad is a terrible substitute for a mouse.
I wouldn't be adverse to new technology that replaces the mouse, as long as it was better. Touch screens, wii like motion detectors etc. are not better.
The Internet is generally stupid
This is the same retarded thinking that has been saying keyboards are going to be obsolete for years.
New ways of interacting don't obsolete old ways for every task.
Yeah, but its not very efficient.
A combination of all four (keyboard, mouse, voice, touch) is great... because you can actually give the computer 3 commands at (essentially) the same time, and 4 in more rare instances.
Do it mentally for awhile, think about everything you do on your PC (scrolling, left click, right click, etc) and how many times those commands are a fraction of a second apart, then go watch someone with voice and/or touch screens do the same thing... I can probably fire off 12 clicks in the time it takes to say "left click", however, there could be rare times where voice might be more efficient, ie: "200 left clicks".
Touch screen, I just cant understand outside of basic terminals. A lot of the time you are covering up (with your finger/hand) what you are trying to do, and doing it basically blind. Its fine for like (Preview)(Quote Parent)(Options)(Cancel) but try and select, and then copy say the "faq" from between "privacy" and "preferences" at the bottom of Slashdot with a touch screen.
Everything will have to become toyishly large and baby-slow if you remove the mouse.
Why is it that every fourth article around here has to proclaim the death of some technology in the next few years? When are we going to get over this stage of thinking? I have been hearing about the demise of Windows, floppies, ICEs, broadcast radio, light bulbs and just about every other technology that has been in the mainstream for more than 6 months for years around here. It never seems to happen.
Infact, I know of more working dot matrix printers at my place of employment than articles that have correctly predicted the death of technology!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
If someone had bothered to say a pad-free stylus, I might agree, but apart from Flypaper & pen from HP, I'm not seeing it happen. A computer mouse is cheap, it has an effective paradigm (move the shiny bar of soap, the pointer moves accordingly), and it no longer has moving parts or even surface requirements. Well, technically, it will not work in most Starwood Hotels due to their affection for glass-topped black tables, but hey, go Hilton, right?
If we are going to analyze this properly, Gartner, we need to review some old-school terms, like data gloves, virtual reality, and motion capture. Dust off your zooba pants and try to remember. Main issues: weight and balance, response speed, range of motion, precision and control, and aesthetic and ergonomics. The Wii Motion Plus is a superb example of virtual swords, baseball bats, tire irons, 9-irons, and tennis rackets. Only Zorro himself would be at home using a virtual sword to create a painting, Visio diagram, or click through EULAs. The rest of us need a surface. The trouble is, our fingers are not clean, and our monitors transmit light. Any goo, gunk, phlegm, oil, or food residue is going to get in the way of photons. Every stroke of the screen is going to leave a "snail trail" for the effort. Now, if we went back to the old "light pen" technology (whoo hoo! and modem couplers!) and had another go, we might be getting somewhere, at least. The trouble is, the stylus tip is going to grind off any coatings over time.
Gartner, you are outside your safe zone, get back in the right quadrant!