The inventor of the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, Douglas Engelbart, has passed away at his home in Atherton, California. He unveiled the prototype of the now standard computer mouse in a December 1968 demonstration in San Francisco and also initiated the first ever video conference with a colleague some 50 kilometres away at the same event.
Mr. Englebart also laid the basis for the internet by describing how information could be tied using text-based laws. His employer, SRI, licensed his mouse design for 40,000 dollars and later released the first commercial mouse with Apple's Lisa computer in 1983.
