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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."
The advent of the mouse killed the keyboard, too, after all. And the internet made TV obsolete, which killed newspapers a few decades ago.
Slowly I get really fed up with such predictors. I have a touchscreen. Actually, I'm using it right now as a display for writing this. Do I use it? Usually, no. I use it at certain special occasions, but it certainly does not replace my mouse. Why? Because it's inconvenient! I have to lift my arm, lean to my screen, aim with my finger and ... miss usually my mark.
And now, try to right-click. Or do a sensible click-drag operation.
Seriously, does anyone still listen to those modern soothsayers?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I wonder if the author has ever tried to stand upright and move a Wiimote around for 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
No? Can't handle it? Didn't think so.
Motion input is cool for things like games but it will never replace the mouse because humans simply are not designed to hold their arms out in front of their bodies for long periods of time.
Don't forget that every so often some "analyst" will predict that "voice recognition" will replace whatever input method you currently use.
Still hasn't happened.
I have a couple games for the Playstation Eye. They show really well why gesture recognition won't replace mice any time soon. Ignoring the fact that gesture recognition has no where near the accuracy, it's just plain tiring to be holding your hands up for more than twenty minutes.
The cake is a pie
I'm all for it.
I love to skateboard, but by-and-large it's a lopsided method of exercise unless you constantly switch stance. I'd love to interact with my raster using two hands but the mouse has the advantage of configurability -- that is, you can change the cursor's speed and velocity to get more from less wtih the added bonus that it's a lot less intrusive onscreen than fingers are.
[sarcasm] Let's blame this on the gamers for holding back progress. First they prevent Linux from widespread desktop adoption and now this![/sarcasm]
I wouldn't use a touchscreen for an FPS either...and I don't think that's what the article was getting at. I'd imagine the Wii-style "gun" movement is what would replace mice for those kinds of games, and as good as I have become at "shooting" with a mouse I still look forward to having the motion interface become the standard.
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.
I don't have much respect for Gartner and the technology would have to improve a lot for me to believe this, but I wouldn't rule it out in the long term. Maybe 20-30 years at a guess and even then, I'm not sure if a mouse would go away entirely or if it'll be a touch screen that replaces it. If fingerprints are a problem, you'd expect manufacturers to redesign touch-screens so they're less of a problem, or more durable and easily cleaned. If resolution and accuracy is an issue now (which I think it is), it'll probably improve over the next few years. Just because today's monitors are a bit sensitive to cleaning products doesn't mean tomorrow's have to be.
But realistically, the concept of actually having an explicit device (a "computer", PC, laptop, tablet, whatever) which you use to do a million things, or carry around with you everywhere, could easily become quite dated. The concept of "logging in" (as we know it) might also become dated for most things.
What's to say that the concept of a single device won't be replaced by a concept of lots of much more flexible devices which are more ubiquitous, and why should I need to go out of my way to tell each of these devices who I am? Why shouldn't people just be walking up to a wall or a desk or a refrigerator or scribbling on paper or whatever and interacting with it ubiquitously, without having to think deeply about the digital side of what they're doing? Why would I need to sit down at my PC and add up my finances every few days if my wallet automatically and accurately kept track of it for me?
If you have enough of this kind of environment, the need for dedicated consoles and the bits that go with them evaporates. In these cases, a mouse is a bit redundant because by assuming the use of a mouse you're trying to force the ideal method of interaction for one device onto a whole lot of other devices, each of which is different. That's when I personally think the mouse will disappear.
Has anyone used a touch screen for more than an hour. It's a pain in the ass. Really it's tiring as hell.
Using the poorly implemented touch screens on the ATM (diebold) at the bank should clue you in that they can also suck for intermittant use.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
That's ridiculous. It's no different than sitting at any desk and shuffling papers/writing/reading. Kids do this 5 days a week for 12 years during school. Adults do it in offices without computers all around the world. What makes you think just because it's a computer screen it's different than paper?
I work as a cashier for a major retailer (I'm in high school, cut me some slack) that's testing touch screens in a limited fashion.
They never really work better. Ever. All us cashiers vastly prefer using just the keyboard. After a month, two months, six months... you get so used to the menus and keyboard shortcuts that you rarely look at the screen. I'm often 4-5 steps ahead of the aging IBM cash register I'm using. Often times I have change counted out before it tells me how much to give back.
Even still, lots of the cash registers are at terrible heights. I seriously doubt they have anyone testing these things.
I wonder why people don't simply stick the monitor/touchscreen directly inside the desk? It would be easy to cut a hole in the middle of a desk and stick the touchscreen in it, and that would fix the problem with arm fatigue. There's no reason why a screen needs to be vertical like a TV.
Doesn't anybody remember the old horizontal PAC-MAN and FROGGER gaming tables?
I always use my laptop screen at about 45 degrees off the horizontal (ie as low as it will go), which I find a lot more comfortable and is similar to the angles that calligraphers or draughtsmen have always used. I agree the vertical monitor thing is a legacy from the CRT, or maybe it's to save space.
Here is my list of interface devices that should be standard IMHO (in no particular order):
1. Touch pad with gestures that allow the screen to be manipulated (rotate, zoom etc).
2. Touch screen with same capabilities (this would be rarely used - as someone mentioned, doing so with peanut butter on your fingers will mar the view - but would come in handy when quickly trying to located something via the gui). I think GUIs will continue to evolve to make using the touchscreen more efficient - in particular the ability to page quickly through files on the machine a la OSX Leopard stacks and directory preview in the finder.
3. Eye tracking technology - something that can track the position of your focal point to move the pointer to that location (this would allow your fingers to remain on the home row - for those of us who touch type). This could eliminate the need for a touch screen if the interface is done right.
4. Mouse - I disagree with the article, a mouse will continue to be useful as a pointing device, particularly for those of us who play FPSs - unless, of course some other first-person/weapon interface comes along that is superior to that. Maybe that will evolve into something like the Wii controller/namchuk combination to replace the keyboard/mouse combo used today. The current Wii controllers are not good enough to meet the demands of FPS play - too laggy - but I am sure the technology will improve.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Why not both? A vertical screen for viewing text, images, data, etc. And a horizontal one for playing with widgets, data entry, and the like.