This BBC News piece is from a couple months ago, but still, as someone who's written about Stanford, IDEO, and the design of the Apple mouse, it caught my eye...
Say goodbye to the computer mouse
It's nearly 40 years old but one leading research company says the days of the computer mouse are numbered.
A Gartner analyst predicts the demise of the computer mouse in the next three to five years.
Taking over will be so called gestural computer mechanisms like touch screens and facial recognition devices.
"The mouse works fine in the desktop environment but for home entertainment or working on a notebook it's over," declared analyst Steve Prentice.
He told BBC News that his prediction is driven by the efforts of consumer electronics firm which are making products with new interactive interfaces inspired by the world of gaming....
So just how ready are people to wave their hands in the air or make faces at devices with embedded video readers?
Gartner's Mr Prentice says millions are already doing it thanks to machines like Nintendo's Wii and smartphones like the iPhone....
[But not everything may change.] "For all its faults, the keyboard will remain the primary text input device," he said. "Nothing is easily going to replace it. But the idea of a keyboard with a mouse as a control interface is the paradigm that I am talking about breaking down."
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