Bill Gates has seen the future and it's mouseless. The Microsoft chairman said at the Consumer Electronics Show that very soon we will interact with technology through speech and touch instead. Just imagine! Tiny children will be going around saying: “Computers have become so simple, even a parent can set up his own e-mail account.” Instead of laboriously clicking a mouse, soon you will need only to tap your computer screen with a fingertip to execute a series of software commands that - without your ever understanding how - make your screen suddenly freeze, thereby forcing you to spend four hours waiting for an expert on a technical helpline to quiz you (“Are you using a WAP-compatible POP3 disc-scanning matrix?”) in a way that makes him sound like he's talking to you through an MI6 phone scramblers.

Some, though, will read the mouse's obituary and feel an itch of scepticism, noting that Mr Gates was speaking in Las Vegas, the spiritual home of reckless optimism. Others will recall how Mr Gates's technological breakthroughs are not always met with whoops (old computer joke: How many Bill Gateses does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: None. He calls a meeting and makes darkness the standard) and will wonder if Microsoft's co-founder isn't being hasty in announcing the death of the keyboard and mouse.

But if using computers really does become as simple as clicking your fingers rather than your mouse, what will we laugh at when we can no longer roar at the computer industry's most reli-able current joke? You know, the one where it says in the ads: “Works straight out of the box.”