Idiots - Canada once quarantined Microsoft mice thinking they were alive

Globe and Mail/ Michael Babad 

Canadian customs officials are on the lookout for many things: Drugs, porn, toxic goods … and newfangled equipment.

Steve Ballmer, the chief of Microsoft Corp., told a wonderful tale yesterday as he unveiled the software giant's new tablet, Surface. Of course, advances in technology were different in the mid-1980s than they are now, and it was a more innocent age.

Here's how Mr. Ballmer put it as he spoke of the interaction between software and hardware:

"Just let's take the mouse as an example. To be successful, Windows 1.0 really needed a mouse. So we built one. Early reviews of mice were not very positive as people struggled to understand the real value. In fact, actually it was so new that Canadian customs quarantined the Microsoft mouse at the border for four weeks thinking that it was alive."  More >>