BoomTown Prediction: Chasing Away the Mice (And Keyboards Too)

May 7, 2010 at 10:30 am PT

The Washington Post, where I once toiled, asked me to do a short piece recently for a spring-cleaning feature in its Outlook section.

It was titled “Twelve Things the World Should Toss Out,” and the candidates nominated by others include: Harvard Law School’s Elizabeth Warren nixing fine print, feminist blogger Jessica Valenti dumping virginity, political whisperer Karl Rove hating exit polls and actor and activist Ed Begley Jr. giving the heave-ho to lawns.

BoomTown’s choice: The physical computer keyboard and its partner-in-carpal-tunnel-syndrome, the mouse.

You can vote here on which is the most useless of the suggestions.

Here’s the piece, which–before you go all technical on me–I wrote on an Apple (AAPL) iPad with a virtual keyboard and touchscreen.

And frankly, if I could have my blog posts downloaded directly from my noggin, it would be okay by me:

The prototype of the first computer mouse–which got its name because of the wire that trailed it–was invented by Doug Engelbart in 1963.

Yes, nearly 50 years ago.

But it’s only a toddler compared with the keyboard, which is a direct descendant–via punch-card and teletype technologies–of the typewriter, patented in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes.

In other words, it’s long past time for a change in the way we interact with the digital devices that have proliferated in our lives. While the keyboard and the mouse have introduced billions of people to the digital experience, they have become antiquated obstacles to the kind of computing that is now emerging.

This new computing is immersive, augmented and completely social. As sci-fi movies predicted, our digital devices are poised to become even more ubiquitous. They will surround us, responding to our expressions, emotions and gestures.

From wearable devices to sensors that will envelop our world to 3-D screens that will react to us, personal computing is about to get a lot more personal. Internet-based television now in development will recognize a viewer and deliver customized entertainment.

And it will do this without the trusty keyboard and mouse. We’re already phasing them out, thanks to the increasing popularity of touchscreens–including the patron saint of all this, the Apple iPhone, and a spate of copycat smartphones. All of these devices allow users to navigate without physical buttons or input devices.

Thus, with a flick of the finger, the era of the mouse and the keyboard will soon be over.

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Anonymous

I love my touch screen devices and look forward to the time when my digital devices surround me and respond to my expressions and gestures. I have more than one Android-based device (including a smartphone and an Archos tablet to name a couple. I prefer Android to OS X, having used both systems.)
And while I can easily see the mouse being phased out by the touch screen—eventually—the keyboard has been around since 1868 for a very good reason. Efficiency.
Touch screens are great for quick and short messages, smartphones, and applications that don’t require much more than a few taps to function. They all have their place and I am an avid user.
Touch screen keyboards do not match the efficiency of physical keyboards for text entry and likely never will. Yes, you typed your 260-word article on your ipad, I challenge you to use it to write something more substantial and lengthy. You will quickly find it to be an onerous task. And I only hope that you don’t also need to reference an image on that same screen.
But until you can create your text straight from your noggin, the “antiquated” keyboard will continue to reign supreme in that realm. (Typed on my antiquated keyboard…)
mikeus

With a cramp in my mouse hand, I say hurray!
Long live the touch screen.
GeorgeS

“political whisperer Karl Rove hating exit polls”

I would have thought that Rove would like to get rid of anti-conspiracy laws.
Phubaiguy

(They think you don't know). It's not the physical changes but the mental ones I dread dealing with. Because right beside the good is also the bad. They know you looked at it but don't buy it yet. Wait and see if it spits out a better deal but do be aware they now know what you're interested in so at least maybe it spits out something close. After awhile the better programs kind of give up until you go back and look at something again. Not much hope left for the Shopping Channel addict who goes online.
JohnDoey

The iPad is clearly the future. The mouse has been killed entirely, and the keyboard has been demoted to the same status as a piano keyboard on a Mac: if you need one, you attach it, but most people don't need it, most of the time. With the interface morphing into various devices, computing on iPad is much more like using real world objects than using a typewriter. Very productive, very fast, very enjoyable.
edtechdev

I suppose you typed that with morse code then.
edtechdev

Actually there have already been studies that using touchscreens, especially vertical ones, is way more tiring for the arm and hand than a mouse, which lets you rest your arm and wrist for the most part.

Plus there is the issue of having to hold the devices itself such as an ipad or cell phone.

Does this story author really think ipad is the future? Perhaps a future of digital eloi who can't and don't know how to create anything, only consume.
schalkwyk

This is why I can't stand tech and online journalism. Please explain how people who spend most of their working moments writing (using admittedly archaic programs like Word) thousands of words and not surrounded by computers responding to our emotions, are going to do that without a keyboard? It might be possible, but so far touch screens just aren't going to cut it. Please also tell me what is wrong with keyboards?

Just because something is old doesn't mean it needs to be changed (pens are still going strong). Some people make a living by writing more than unthoughtful 400 word screeds. And for that, a keyboard still remains a perfect piece of technology and design.
http://blog.macb.net macbeach

Voice recognition has predictably stalled right behind other AI efforts that don't depend on shear enumeration (like chess programs) and I seriously doubt that direct mental communications with computer will happen in our lifetimes.

What computers have contributed to journalism besides the ability to publish quickly without fact checking, is spell and grammar checking that introduce errors more glaring than the originals that they replace. I am no spelling genius but rarely do I read an article that doesn't have these computer generated typos, some of which can change the meaning of a story significantly.

If virtual keyboards become more prevalent it will probably be not from user demand but from manufacturers desire to make a product cheaper to produce but for which they can charge more (and then charge more still for a keyboard add-on).

I use an Apple chicklet keyboard, which sucks, but it sucks far less than some of the current alternatives. Junky keyboards are so common these days that kids will never know what they are missing. Most of the typos I make these days would not have been possible with a good old IBM Selectric. Youth, instead of dreaming of a return to quality dreams of a science fiction world beyond our decaying culture.
thomasmassengale

While you may have written this article on an iPad, you used a virtual QWERY keyboard. That fact that you used a device that takes touch typing a step further, your input method was still basically the same process one armed with a Smith Corona would use.

That said, your assertion is probably right. We will be seeing less and less of our old friend the QWERTY keyboard and the mouse.
http://www.felgner.ch haraldf

Agree!

As stated 2 years ago: “There are better human computer interface setups than the omnipresent keyboard-mouse-monitor combination!”

http://www.felgner.ch/2008/07/390-how-bodies-ma…

BoomTown Prediction: Chasing Away the Mice (And Keyboards Too)

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