The Extinction Of The Mouse, Fingers Point At The Screen

July 25, 2012

The Extinction Of The Mouse, Fingers Point At The Screen

As I walked towards the check-out point at the 24-hour Tesco-Extra in Portlaoise, I looked around to see if there was an open pay point, there was none. Another woman came and stood behind me, in a queue. One thing for certain was that there was nobody ready to serve us. There were three members of staff who seemed to be very busy filling up the shelves while another one pulled a pallet of merchandise from the storeroom. Then came my four year old son, who at the time had still been looking for his Ben10 T-shirt inside the shop.

“Daddy, what are you waiting for, you pay here, see, you press this” instructed Sean, leaving me with that feeling of embarrassment but at the same time proud that he is leading the way, helping four other people who had joined up the “queue”.

This was the self-service check-out that is now a prominent feature in many supermarkets around the country. I knew the reason why there wasn't any staff member at the check-outs was that customers can now do their own checking out. But I had never done any before and I was afraid to try it, not until this day where I was “forced” to do it, by my own son.

One thing that fascinates me with these self-service pay points that can now be found at train stations and other public areas is the use of the touch screen. This has made computing so easy. (but not until you're told by a four year old that it's easy,). In the early 1960s, a man by the name of Douglas Engelbart, with his colleague, Bill English, brought the idea of using the axis system of presenting data, where an object was referenced by co-ordinates. This idea gave the birth of a mouse, a very popular computer hardware and input device that has been part and parcel of the computer age. It is rumoured that the name mouse came from the fact that the gadget had a body and a tail resembling that of the real notorious rodent.

One of the earliest inventions of the mouse

Since then, the mouse has not only made computing easy, but has been a part of the complete set of a computer. Its purpose being pointing, selecting, clicking, dragging, copying, cutting moving, pasting and more.

When I did my Graphic Designing course more than ten years ago, the most important tool in it was the mouse, being able to juggle around the computer screen using it was the most sought after skill. If you could draw or design a graphic within minutes, you were said to be having exceptional mouse skills, and that was true. The mouse still is a very important peripheral in the computer, but that seems to be slowly, if not rapidly, becoming untrue.

Pointing the finger at the (touch)screen

Has the touch screen spelt the demise of the mouse?

While the real mouse still wrecks havoc in many parts of the world, the electronic version might be going extinct. The modern computer has almost completely parted ways with the mouse. Most computing devices now come in with or in form of a touch screen as a substitute of a traditional keyboard and mouse. It is quite surprising that the idea of touch screen technology came to life almost the same time as the traditional mouse was invented, (1960s), but the former is only having real impact now. E. A Johnson of the royal Radar Establishment in UK invented that technology for the air traffic control. It was mainly confined to that and state related use only, which helped the mouse go to prominence.

The 90s saw a surge in production of touch screen technology, with Apple, MicroSoft, IBM, Palm and others leading the way. In the 2000s, more companies came into play, with introduction of the Liquid Crystal Display screen (LCD). We have probably seen in aeroplanes in the video players behind the seats, in ATMs, tickets machines in train stations and other places, it has just become a touch and go environment. Most companies got “touched” by Apple's iPhone in 2007, which was completely touch technology, and they were inspired. Now the home desktop computer has joined, the iPads and the tablets, you name them.

The other day I just laid my hands on an Asus Eee Top touch screen desktop computer on sale at a local computer outlet, oh boy, what an invention. Although the Taiwanese company isn't a well known household brand in this part of the world, that one is a market competitor, both in price and features. Well, am not here to sell any brands, but just making you aware of what is in store for the touch generation.

A touch of Taiwan. Asus Eee Top.

Which one is the better?

It depends with what you do with your gadget. I would definitely go with the touch screen enabled one for a few reasons, some of which are;

Portability – a touch-screen computer is an all in one item with no separate mouse and keyboard (although you may have an option to have them), and that makes it easier to carry or move around. Imagine how we would have used car navigation systems, e.g Tom Tom, if we had no touch-screen technology.

Graphics – it is also good when designing or drawing provided that it's compatible with the required tools like a stylus pen.

Dual action - a touch screen is both an input and output device, it carries out two tasks that would have required both a mouse and a screen to perform

Having said that, I still find the traditional keyboard and mouse set still the leader, particularly in work places where heavy duty typing and data entry are involved. It will be ages until companies adopt the touch technology into their mainstream computing needs, although some are already going that way. But with the introduction of other technologies like voice recognition software that replaces typing and new innovations like laser keyboards, who will resist the touch technology? I will leave you to think about it as I have to go and warm my dinner in the kitchen. By the way, my microwave oven is a touch-screen.

Mbonisi is a student in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and IT at a local UK University.