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You may also want to watch the short video on LCDs put out recently by the Engineer Guy. Really explains and demonstrates it quite well.

http://www.engineerguy.com/videos.htm

Years ago I did a public radio piece on this ... here was my conclusion: "Is this new Zeppelin a true revival? Most likely its just a symptom of what's called "helium head" disease. To be a "helium head" means you've fallen in love with lighter-than-air travel - airships, blimps, dirigibles, or zeppelins. And in them you see an instant and easy solution to nearly all the world's transportation problems. This disease of helium-headiness has afflicted humankind for over a hundred years -- and likely will continue for as long as humans move about the globe." The complete piece is at: http://www.engineerguy.com/comm/4477.htm

Bill Hammack is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at University of Illinois. He has a weekly commentary on Engineering and life that airs on some NPR stations. An archive of about 250 of his commentaries are available at his website http://www.engineerguy.com/ See, for instance, this one on Linux http://www.engineerguy.com/comm/3344.htm

Unfortunately, they are in Real Audio format. Come on Bill! What kind engineer are you. Where's the podcast?

Bill Hammack is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at University of Illinois. He has a weekly commentary on Engineering and life that airs on some NPR stations. An archive of about 250 of his commentaries are available at his website http://www.engineerguy.com/ See, for instance, this one on Linux http://www.engineerguy.com/comm/3344.htm

Unfortunately, they are in Real Audio format. Come on Bill! What kind engineer are you. Where's the podcast?

But it isn't Orwell's Big Brother Police Force and their in-your-face technology that menaces us. Since World War Two we've moved step-by-step toward a system where a police state need no longer be brutal, or openly inquisitorial, or even omnipresent in public consciousness. Police have instead moved in the direction of anticipating and forestalling crime. So, the trend is toward tracking every citizen throughout his or her life - geographically, commercially, and biologically.

This began soon after World War Two with records of fingerprints, extensive paper dossiers on citizens, and then computer punch cards to sort through files. It evolved into the electronic databases and biological profiling we have today. These new chips are just a way to quietly add a page to an electronic dossier.

Still, the potential for abuse is enormous. In the future, perhaps, when someone approaches a sales desk their credit info would be displayed automatically for the sales staff. Or, the state could track the public movements of everyone. As a result people would be less likely to do public activities, to engage, for example, in protests that offend powerful interests.

This seems a bit like asking what it would take to replace the current way of driving a car (steering wheel, gas and pedal brakes, etc.) with something better. But the interface between humans and automobiles is pretty much a solved problem, and nobody seems to spend much time speculating on what a paradigm change in automobile control would be like.

Oh yeah? Two words: cruise control. It completely redefined the "car interface". How about two more: intermittent wipers. True, the inventor got shafted by Detroit and had to fight tooth and nail for years to get his due, but he too changed the "car interface" dramatically.

There's a curious assumption which I've seen repeatedly-- namely, that a paradigm shift in human/computer interaction would be a good thing. Why, exactly?

Simple: because the quantum increase in computer access that was engendered by the WIMP interface isn't by any stretch of the imagination the endpoint of interface evolution. Want an example? Don Hopkins has been pushing his concept of Pie Menus for about 15 years now, and has implemented them everywhere he can find an amenable display system (starting with (*shudder*) X10 and including MS-Windows!). If you think you know how user interfaces should work and you haven't read any of Don's exhortations on the human-factors improvements inherent in non-linear menus, you need to get with the program.