The Guardian reports that the computer mouse is celebrating its 40th birthday.

(Photo reproduced from The Guardian)

Forty years later, we're using the same basic idea to manipulate things on our screens.

Will the mouse disappear, as touch sensitive screens and other technologies become cheaper and more widespread? I have a feeling that we'll continue using the mouse for many years to come. We're used to it and history shows that a "good enough" technology can hold its own quite well against "better" technologies that follow. However, I doubt that the mouse will have quite the same longevity as the keyboard. (I can get proficient at manipulating things on an iPhone screen very easily... but every "new way" of inputting text that I've come across so far seems less than satisfactory or quite challenging to learn).