According to this article the input device you’ve come to know and love is headed the way of the Dodo in the next five years. Touch screens, motion sensing, and facial recognition are thought to be the new heir to the thrown, thus bringing the 40-year reign of Carpal Tunnel to an end.

The article mentions the Wii and iPhone as examples of tilting or shaking mechanisms that can make the device do different things. So, according to the experts we’re all going to be shaking our computers like a bunch of idiots in the future. Someone call the President, they’ll have to rethink cities now!

Touch screens I’ll give you, there’s a good possibility that they’ll grab a bigger hold of the market within five years. Shaking your desktop like a Parkinson’s patient playing Wii Tennis however, I don’t buy it. The “experts” are hardly ever dead-on with their predictions and I see this one being a little flabby as well. Keep it up though, guys. You can’t be wrong all the time, you’re bound to get one right sooner or later.

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4 Comments »

1. 
   Loud_G
   July 21, 2008 at 12:53 pm

   Hmm… I seriously doubt it.
   For mice to be gone in Five years, we need to have the replacement tech NOW. In the hands of the geek elite this new tech would slowly move out and infiltrate homes everywhere. But as of yet there is no replacement, not even a expensive one.

   Touch screens are nice, but it is a lot cheeper to replace a mouse than a screen.

   [Reply]
2. 
   Shawn M.
   July 21, 2008 at 5:17 pm

   Well, touch screens are kinda old tech, really… I mean, when I used to work at Subway nearly 8 years ago, our computer/register was entirely touch screen. But I really don’t see the mouse going the way of the dodo anytime soon, even if new tech is released. Just because something’s new and better doesn’t mean it instantly gets tossed — just look at regular DVD’s vs. Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is superior, of course, but plain ol’ DVD’s are gonna outsell them by a wide margin.

   Also, didn’t these experts predict we’d have flying cars and be living in Jetsons-style cities by now? I want my flying car, dammit!

   [Reply]
3. 
   Devin de Gruyl
   July 21, 2008 at 5:52 pm

   Touchscreens, okay, I’ll give you that. I might even be able to see replacing the mouse with a Wiimote-like device. I don’t, however, think we’ll be seeing either of these outright replacing mice any time soon, at least not within the five-year window.

   Looking at keyboards, we still have those (and still using the same QWERTY layout and physical arrangement dating back to the late 1800s!), even though, realistically, we have the technology now to do away with them entirely, either with touchscreens or handwriting recognition or something similar. The reason physical, typewriter-style keyboards are still around is mostly because A) people are used to them by now, and B) there is still a psychological need, I believe, for people to want to press physical buttons to accomplish tasks. Tactile feedback is a somewhat underappreciated area of ergonomics, but I feel it’s almost as important as research into RSI and other such injuries.

   [Reply]
4. 
   Shelly
   July 23, 2008 at 9:27 pm

   I’m just wondering… if you grimace at the screen, is that abort, retry or ignore?

   [Reply]

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