

What if someone invented a better mousetrap and the world yawned? - edw519
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/technology/08stream.html?=&ei=5124&en=3cbf9c1a8a06c507&ex=1370577600&pagewanted=all

======
thwarted
"Consider that Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse in 1964. It was obvious to
many people that it was a better way to control a computer, yet it took two
decades even to begin reaching a mass audience. Or consider the hyperlink,
invented independently by Mr. Engelbart and the computing evangelist Ted
Nelson in the mid-1960s. It took roughly three decades to reach the public in
the form of the World Wide Web."

These examples are starting to wear thin. It took three decades for computers
to become accessible enough, financially, for these things to even make sense
to offer to the masses, and it required a critical mass of users to make sense
to start doing business over the Internet. A wikipedia that no one could edit
or an Amazon that no one bought anything on because they didn't have a
computer in their home would be quite lame indeed.

The invention of the printing press didn't make everyone literate overnight;
the 30 years it took for the mouse to enter widespread adoption is nothing.

~~~
BrandonM
That's not to mention that it's not "obvious" to me that a mouse is a better
way to control a computer. If I had to construct a "find" query using a point-
and-click interface, I would be highly annoyed. I use keyboard macros on GMail
so that I can do everything without touching the mouse, and I get really
annoyed when the page loses focus and I have to click inside it to restore it.

So not only does acceptance take time and require good timing, but it may also
be that something that is "obviously" better may just seem obviously better to
you.

~~~
parenthesis
A good (standardised, consistent) mouse-driven interface means one can use an
unfamiliar program without reading any documentation first. This, I think,
explains the popularity of the mouse (along with its low cost relative to
touch-screens and other similar input devices). But giving a program input in
this way can be very slow. The experienced user can't get much faster than the
novice.

A mouse, of course, is a good input method when it makes sense for gestures in
2 dimensions to control something. (Hmm, that is rather tautologous.) E.g.
drawing (but then a graphics tablet is probably better for this, but more
expensive).

With a text-based interface, one must read and learn before one can use an
unfamiliar program. But giving the program input can then typically be much
faster, and the program can be easily scriptable.

------
noonespecial
FTA:

 _“When I started I thought that this would take 6 to 12 months,” Mr. Harman
said. What he found instead were companies that had little interest in
redesigning their products, even in the face of the promise of double-digit
increases in efficiency._

I've found that you need for something to be at least 10 times better before
people will consider making the effort to think about using it.

~~~
xirium
A factor of nine improvement has been noted elsewhere on this forum:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=196994>

------
mhb
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211712>

------
jakewolf
It's all about timing. Imagine if the first hybrid car came out when gas cost
$10 a gallon.

~~~
jrockway
Gas does cost $10 a gallon (in Europe).

------
rglovejoy
As far as the power supply fan is concerned, their manufacturers don't care
about improving its efficiency. This is because you are not the real customer.
Dell, HP, et al are. When they place an order with the metal-bending shop in
China, all they care about is price. If putting a more efficient fan in the
power supply is going to raise the price by a few pennies, they won't be
interested.

The only way anything that the high-efficiency power supply is going to fly is
if it is going into a high-end product.

~~~
olefoo
Or if it's going to a customer who is using a large enough quantity that
efficency gains of a few percentage points are big savings.

If Google can shave .5 percent off their electric bill by using a more
efficient cooling fan on PSU's going in to their server farms, it's worth it
to spend a fair amount to realize that savings, especially since they know
their usage is going to grow.

------
jwesley
Of course no one would care. New ideas are always repelled by inertia. Why do
you think we still use the terribly inefficient QWERTY keyboard?

------
eru
Does anyone have an idea how he could have managed to cast the vortex in his
bathtube?

------
LPTS
Dvorak felt like that trying to topple qwerty.

~~~
dfranke
Dvorak came first.

~~~
Hexstream
No, Dvorak came up with the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard after studying the
behavior of typists using previously available typewriters and presented it as
an alternative to Qwerty...

~~~
dfranke
Just double-checked. Yup, looks like I have it wrong. For some reason I had it
in my mind that alphabetical keyboards came first, then Dvorak and Sholes were
introduced within a year or so of each other and Sholes won out.

~~~
dangoldin
The reason the QWERTY layout was created was due to typewriters. They tried to
move the most commonly used letters away from each other to avoid the
"typewriter levers/hands" from locking up against each other when someone was
quick typing. Thus, QWERTY is quite inefficient since it's trying to make
commonly used letters as far away as possible.

