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Logitech Makes 1 Billionth Mouse
Smivs writes "Logitech has hailed as a major landmark the production of their one billionth computer mouse.
The news comes at a time when analysts claim the days of the mouse are numbered.
'It's rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company,' said Logitech's general manager Rory Dooley.
'Look at any other industry and it has never happened. This is a significant milestone.'
The computer mouse will achieve a milestone of its own next week when it turns 40.
It was 9 December 1968 when Douglas C. Engelbart and his group of researchers at Stanford University put the first mouse through its paces."
The news comes at a time when analysts claim the days of the mouse are numbered.
[citation needed]
No seriously, where is there a mainstream commentator predicting the demise of the mouse, and backing it up with hard data and logic?
That's weird. Why on earth would a Mac user not simply use the supplied Apple brand mouse? Oh, right.
Speaking to your criticism directly, I have about half a dozen Logitech mice, spanning a decade, that all work flawlessly. The only reason I have bought more since the first one 11 years ago has been to keep pace with technology (optical, wireless, 2d scroll wheel, laser, etc.)
Then again, it's not like I use mine for grueling tasks like ejecting CDs.
I wonder if when they ship this one billionth mouse to a customer, they will include in the box a flashing ad telling him that he is the one billionth customer and should click here to claim his prize.
Yes, a billionth of most things are microscopic in size. So shipping it is quite difficult. Great job logitec.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I too am a big fan of Logitech mice. My main computer rig actually sports a Razer Diamondback these days, but my laptop mouse is Logitech, as are the mice on my workstation and server rack's KVM at work. Over the years I've had countless ones. Like you, I mostly have upgraded to keep pace with technology: moving to one with a scroll wheel, moving to an optical, moving to USB, getting a mouse with more buttons, etc.
Like all heavy use devices I've had a few failures (I've had 2 Logitech mice wear out on me), but overall compared with other mice I've still noticed them to be of a pretty high quality. When I used to work as a tech at a college many years ago, I can't count how many Microsoft Intellimouses had a scroll wheel that was jammed where it couldn't be moved anymore.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
does anyone have a clue what was happening 1B seconds ago?
The Tenerife disaster occurred on March 27, 1977, which is about 1 billion seconds, or 31 years and 251 days, ago.
Yeah... right... it won't be mainstream in 3-5 years... sorry, but I call BS.
Touchscreens and facial recognition software will not replace the mouse in an office environment. It won't replace it for gaming. Hell, it won't replace it period.
Take gaming as a simple example. When I'm playing WoW, I'm often looking elsewhere, eating a snack, drinking a beer, or talking to my wife who is sitting on the other side of the room... the last thing I'm going to want to do is stare at the screen and make funny faces at it to move the mouse. Sorry, ain't gonna happen.
Don't get me wrong here; touch screens are a huge boon and will have a place in specialized industries; auto interfaces, shared spaces, Cell Phones, etc.
But making the claim that it will no longer be mainstream and large companies, lets say HR Block, will drop the mouse and replace everything with a touch screen and facial recognition software is the biggest load of crap I've heard in quote a long time.
Microsoft is an excellent mouse-making company. It's a shame people keep complaining about their failed OS sideline.
Clicky:
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html
Unless you really, really like using tags (or it isn't available...), "Plain Old Text" works pretty well.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"A billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth. A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged. A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music. A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning,"
-- Robert Goizueta, CEO (1980-1997) Coca-Cola Company
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
Holy crap you're right! My parents have a Mighty Mouse on their iMac. I've been trying to right click with it for 2 weeks, with no luck, and its been driving me nuts. I just went upstairs and tried by lifting my index finger when I clicked, and voila: context menu! My reaction: "stupidest mouse ever."
This has to be the worst human interface design ever. This goes way beyond non-intuitive and is in face counter-intuitive. Why should I have to lift one finger to press with another? Point-and-click is now point-lift-and-click? Its going to take forever to explain this to my mom!
Seriously, who comes up with this crap? And how does it ever get past the testing stages? Does Apple deliberately retard their accessories in order to support a strong third party market?
I wish Apple would stop sacrificing function for obscure coolness. "Check it out, my Apple mouse can tell where my fingers are! Sure its a pain in the ass to use it, but IT CAN TELL WHERE MY FINGERS ARE!!!"
"Yeah? Well my Logitech mouse works right." Suck it, Steve.
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That probably means something more like 976562500 hard drives.