So the keyboard and mouse are dead ?

October 28th, 2008
When Bill Gates announced that the Keyboard and Mouse were dead, I took each word with a pinch of salt as usual. But events seem to be proving him right. my local train station is festooned with posters for new mobile phones - now we wont go into the pros and cons of phone marketing, but the big posters have one thing in common, they are all promoting touch based devices. Most of the devices dont even come with a keyboard alternative and the dynamic screens scroll through various menus dynamically, as you touch them. We’ve all seen these and can look forward to seeing this interface being built into PC’s systematically with Windows 7 - Asus have just released their £399 touch minibookso we can see increasingly direct interaction growing in the future
But touch isnt the only interface that is growing, Voice control is a real optrion for all now with the advent of VR in Vista, if you havent tried it - why not ? Apple have announced voice output on the nano 4th gen (albeit through an incrediubly convulted route involving itunes) and thrid party developers are getting in the act. Accenda have introduced a hardware addon to the ipod that gives vpice control over menus simlar to the voice tags in my N95 mobile
Weve been keeping tabs on new control systems on our youtube channel - go to www.youtube.com/davebanesaccess or you can try this playlist