<human>:  What is the history of the computer mouse?
<bot>: The computer mouse was first invented in 1964 by Douglas Engelbart, an American engineer. The mouse was initially used as a tool to manipulate objects in a graphical user interface that Engelbart had developed as part of an ambitious research project at the Stanford Research Institute. The mouse was first publicly presented during the Association for Computing Machinery’s Fall Joint Computer Conference on December 9th, 1968, where it was met with amusement by the audience. Soon after, the device was put into commercial production by Xerox, who had licensed the patent from Engelbart, and computer mice were included with many of the early personal computers. In the 1980s, advances such as the ball mouse, optical mouse, and wireless mouse were invented, and the mouse was soon an essential piece of hardware for any computer. Today, the mouse continues to evolve with new technologies such as touchpads and motion-sensing functionality.