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11/12/09
Recently they have been experimenting with detecting the position and flex of muscles in the body, particularly of the fingers. The example they used was playing Guitar Hero with an air guitar (it worked, was quite cool).
With some miniaturized sensors (they are already pretty small) this tech could easily be applied to typing. It would require adapting to your typing style, but fairly quickly I bet people could get used to making typing gestures with their hands in any position. The computer would just need to learn how you move your fingers for particular letters (you would have to know how to touch type of course).
This would eliminate wrist strain, eliminate the need for a keyboard, and allow for typing while doing numerous other things.
This could also easily apply to moving a cursor around. #singularity
11/12/09
11/12/09
11/12/09
So maybe, just as I can type this sentence without thinking about individual letters, or keys, or what finger is doing what (because my brain was "trained" in typing class in 10th grade), we'll be able to train our brains to use some "conceptual" interface that is a hybrid of visual and non-visual, or a completely non-visual, but "think-able" way of manipulating information.
In the shorter term, look for fudges like flexible, foldable or rollable displays, retina-projection displays that clip onto sunglasses, and smartphones that are literally "all screen" (sort of like HTC's Touch HD2, but more so). We can squeeze another decade of progress out of the "edge-to-edge touch-screen" paradigm, by refining the UIs that are used. Palm, Apple and Google have all been slowly pushing that envelope. #singularity
11/11/09
Personally I would love to have a HUD and earphone implanted in my head. I would still want to have a computer screen for graphics intensive applications but things like phone interfacing, clocks, instant messages, etc. I think a simple vision overlay like the Terminator Version would be very helpful. #singularity
11/11/09
I had the great pleasure of using a laptop with a 15" 2048x1536 QXGA display (~171ppi) and while eyestrain was alarming when text was set to the default 1 pixel weight, simply increasing the font to an acceptably readable size and turning off cleartype resulted in perhaps the smoothest and most readable type I've ever seen rendered on a laptop display.
Having used an IBM T221 at one point, the thing is abso-fucking-lutely amazing at full rez: 204 dpi. It was actually a challenge to set up layouts and design for print with it because text and graphics literally look smoother than they print at in most cases. The monitor has all the detail of a high quality glossy magazine cover if said magazine cover was printed on a 120 nit light bulb.
Any designer can tell you that as displays get sharper, you need to increase the font size until you aren't straining your eyes.
PS: Nice unibrow, really compliments the five o'clock shadow and the diamond stud earring is the icing that completes the "total douchebag" look. #singularity
11/11/09
That is easily the stupidest and least-supported claim I've seen on the internet this week. And that's saying something.
For an informed discussion of computer-related eye strain from people who might actually know what they're talking about, try this page from the American Optometric Association at [www.aoa.org]
Note that the article's only mention of display sharpness directly contradicts the claim above: "Viewing a video display terminal screen is different than viewing a typewritten or printed page. Often the letters on a VDT screen are not as precise or sharply defined, the level of contrast of the letters to the background is reduced and the presence of glare and reflections on the screen may make viewing more difficult."
If your iMac's screen hurts your eyes, try turning down the brightness or removing other light sources which may be causing screen glare.
If that doesn't work, maybe you can try placing a diffusion filter in front of your monitor (or simply smear it liberally with Vaseline) to reduce the excessive clarity.
11/12/09
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11/12/09
@Software_Goddess: That's Billy Zane! #singularity
11/11/09
And about pixel density. There's no point in making it smaller if you can't see it. Adding resolution to a display where you can't even see the individual pixels means you are eating up resources for virtually no gain. People don't want smaller and smaller devices. They just want it portable and be accessible anywhere. The next step would be to allow more screen real estate to show up in a smaller package, like rollable OLED displays, and like some other commentors have said, to streamline the whole process so that you won't have to worry about the absolutely mundane stuff like turning on/off wifi or flight mode.
11/11/09
Another problem is that the tools we use to represent concepts and ideas are part of the limitation. By that I mean that most non-Asian cultures use individual letters/words which are formed into sentences and ideas. Slow.
The Chinese can represent an idea with a single "ideogram" character. We even have small examples of that in western culture like the Hand symbol when it's safe to cross the street and other symbology like a red circle with a line through it to represent that you should not do "something".
Likewise someone needs to kill the "mouse". Put a fork in it, it's done. Great idea for its time but its time has passed. We need better input options than a mouse. #singularity
11/11/09
Please name an input method more accurate and easier to use than a mouse, because its definitely not touchscreens.
And did you know that Chinese people actually type romanized characters to input Chinese? Its called pinyin, although there are other input methods that can be a bit faster but are still keyboard based. If your talking about writing it, it has the same problems as writing words by hand. And one character doesn't represent one concrete idea. You need at least two characters like a compound word to get any real meaning, and newer words are getting bigger with 3 or 4 character lengths, all comprising of a ton of strokes if you were to write them physically. The Koreans have their own alphabet now, meaning they are exactly like western cultures. The Japanese are slowly phasing out there use of Chinese characters. Even the Chinese, who are proud of their writing system, have simplified their characters to allow for faster writing, as well as adopted to above mentioned pinyin system as an official way to alphabetize their language and "input" it into electronic devices. You argument that non-character or Asian-based input is "slow" is quite flawed. #singularity
11/11/09
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn #singularity
11/11/09
For these reasons, and many more, I foresee screen technology (whether LCD screens or projectors of a sort) remaining the standard for many, many years to come. We're social animals, and sharing the view is part of what we love. If anything, I see displays becoming larger, with higher resomolutions, and being easily "painted" onto walls. Anything else seems like pipe dreams inspired by 80s cyberpunk fiction (which has not aged well.) #singularity
11/11/09
wait, that stuff is working and people do want it. especially bluetooth headsets and wireless headphones. they just have to be reliable and cheap. #singularity
11/11/09
I think displays like those will catch on quickly when the price comes down enough. People will be won over having 800x600 resolution today or 1024x768 tomorrow. #singularity
11/11/09
Moving from a LCD monitor to a privately viewed headmounted display is a radical shift in usability that places enormous limitations on the product. It puts more burden on the user with little practical benefit, and hinders the performance of other tasks. This is why no headmounted display has ever caught on as a practical alternative for daily use of a computer or portable computing device. #singularity
11/11/09
Perhaps for some games, or private movie viewing on an airplane, or extremely specific industrial or military use... but for general consumer use, I see almost no practical benefit of wearable glasses displays (like the Lumus PD-18 you mentioned) as a prevalent screen replacement technology. I've yet to be given a solid counter-argument for this, and apparently, neither has the consumer public. (This isn't to say, as a gadget lover, I wouldn't want to try a pair... but they'd always be a novelty, and useless for my daily computer needs as an artist, writer and sometime-musician.)
On the other hand, perhaps there will be a major revolution in head-mounted displays that weigh less than an ounce, can't be lost, don't drain battery power and have super high resolution, and don't make everyone look like a reject from an 80s sci-fi flick. When and if, perhaps everyone will want a pair so they can finally get some practical use of their cellphones, which have always been hindered by restrictive 2D display technology. #singularity
11/11/09
11/11/09
Depending on what kind of artist or musician you are, you might find them capable of augmenting your work in interesting ways. For example a camera in the glasses could track two blank pages on a music stand and overlay the notes. You wouldn't have to turn the pages. #singularity
11/11/09
they do more to accomodate the inherent limitations of human anatomy than take advantage of it.
even the concept of the GUI falls into that category. it's modeled around simply making something accessible for humans. it's current form is obviously better than its original form, but inevitably, our limits limit IT.
imagine if you could do computation without going through the physical middleman of your eyes, ears, and hands for input and feedback. it's the next logical steps, but i wonder if it's not a terrible idea to leave some limitations in place.
in a world where to think it is to do it, i could see people getting seriously hooked on brain based computing. information/stimulation addiction may well be a reality in a few more years.
i mean, look at how helpless some modern people feel when rudimentary technologies like electricity or long distance communications are suddenly unavailable. i believe there is even a psychological term for trauma caused by a sudden absence of technology.
now imagine you've been jacked into a cerebrally interactive computing system on a constant basis since you were say, 5, and you're 30 now, and it goes off. #singularity
11/11/09
What we really will want is fewer devices that we'll actually have LESS control over. Meaning it will micromanage itself more, and let us do the tasks we want to do. No more selecting WiFi, no syncing, and so on. Why do you have to switch your phone to vibrate when you're in a loud area? Let your phone figure out how to get your attention. This is just an example but maybe you can see where I'm going here - it's easy to think the next idea for a device is to make it smaller, more storage, more buttons, more radios, and so on - but then you get Windows Mobile. Or "media center" keyboards, or cell phones with higher megapixel cameras.
Those are the pedestrian brainstorms that keep some businesses afloat while some other business thinks of an actual new idea. #singularity
11/12/09
11/13/09
11/11/09
Looks cool, but how far away are we from this? #singularity