Touchscreens first, probably. Then voice commands, then mind commands? :D

I'm fine with voice commands, and mind commands :P

Also, looking forward to those Google glasses coming this winter. :D

They weren't "claiming" it, they were pointing out the fact that the mouse hinders productivity. It just happens that keyboard and touch interfaces allow people to get work done without knowing anything.

A standard keyboard has just over a hundred keys that one can press without looking. And even without using the various meta keys, you can do about a hundred things without looking at your keyboard. A mouse can only hit 5 spots without looking. The four corners of the screen and the location under the cursor. Mind you that last one isn't always in the same place.

But, what's even worse are UIs like MS' where you're always going back and forth between the keyboard and the mouse.

So, in other words, yes indeed, the mouse is terrible for productivity, I personally prefer to use vi as my text editor and it has no visible UI at all. It also happens to be one of the most usable interfaces I've ever seen, just with a huge learning curve.

I know there was a big outcry when it was implemented in Office. Most I know hated it and still do. One or two say they like it, now two or three counting you. :)

If it were helpful if they showed keyboard shortcuts more prominently. I have the underlines enabled by default, but that doesn't apply to ribbon and the keyboard shortcuts are not apparent unless you hover over the item.

Ribbon interface is a big mess in my opinion. I've not seen the minimized version, but the regular version is bulky and offers no improvement.

And don't get me starting about trying to figure out which stupid picture in Windows Movie Maker means "Fade-to-black"... that program's ribbon is particularly annoying because there are very few things with text on them, so it's a whole lot of guesswork.

Those would be cool, indeed. I just hope they don't support Adsense. :)

Or support AdBlock too :D

It's not an issue of age, it's an issue of the fact that I can touch type. A touch typist will get more stuff done using a keyboard than a mouse, assuming the UI is properly constructed.

Until we get to the point where we're mind linked to the computer, the keyboard will be the fastest most efficient way of interfacing with a computer.

Sigh, this is why I have so little hope for the future. We don't just toss the stuff in the trash that's broken, we also toss stuff in the trash that's quite useful.

Yeah - the mouse doesn't even remotely come close to using keyboard commands, once you've learned them. I mean ... you do use key bindings for things you have to do quick, rather than move mouse to and click all the times in games, if you really can't think of any work related productivity examples. Think a RTS - select a specific group of troops? Holding mousebutton down to draw a select box versus pressing a key? Or ARPG? Move mouse and right click a potion versus hitting the number key?

I guess I should have made myself clearer. Was talking mainly from a navigational point of view, using Windows Explorer. Using Windows since 94, I still can't get around Explorer using keyboard only.

I can touch type perfectly, it is really not a problem at all, and I barely make mistakes while doing so. Also, I play SC2, with what I consider a high action-per-minute count, so that's not a problem either.

Sorry 'bout that, should have made myself clearer.

Sure you can, but due to MS' incompetence it's not as efficient as it should be. winkey + r type explorer hit tabs a few times to get into the correct pane and go from there. Or you type the directory you need into the run dialog which gets you there directly.

The problem with MS is that they hire people to do the cool stuff, but completely ignore the details of getting it to work correctly. Even win 7 which is by far their best OS ever, is still more or less mediocre in that respect.

I agree, but it's even simpler in Win 7. WinKey+E, then tabs...

Windows 7 did improve keyboard navigation a good deal. I especially love the WinKey+1, etc shortcuts for pinned programs..

Probably I am not used to it, but it takes me more time to write a longer path than to navigate to it using the mouse.
Yea, that's a neat little feature, using it constantly. It is like casting a spell! :)

That's what auto-complete is for. You type the first few characters until you hit a unique match. Or get down to the last couple and just use the arrow keys. Any time you can avoid switching between your keyboard and mouse you should stick with what you're using at the momen.t
That's a good one with the shortcuts. As for explorer, it's even faster when you use the run dialog to initiate the explorer window in the appropriate directory.

Aero is more than window dressing. It's also used for peek, preview and snap which I find to be extremely useful.