Is the end of the venerable computer mouse at hand? Analyst firm Gartner seems to think so, and says its case is bolstered by the meteoric rise of technologies found in, and made popular by, Nintendo's Wii controller and the Apple iPhone. Piling on is the slowly maturing field of facial recognition technology, which companies like Panasonic are now testing in the home electronics field. It's a combination that does not bode well for the mouse, said Gartner analyst Steven Prentice, which saw its beginnings at the hands of Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute in 1963. One caveat worth noting in all this peripheral doom-and-gloom is that the keyboard is here to stay. PC FPS fans can rejoice at their convenience. [PC Authority]

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