The Computer of 2010

nostriluu writes " With the assistance of award-winning firm frogdesign (the geniuses behind the look of the early Apple and many of today's supercomputers and workstations), Forbes ASAP has designed and built (virtually, of course) the computer of 2010."

Comments

Re:whats up with the no keyboard fetish?

[Frymaster]

Face it: keyboards are still around after all these years because THEY WORK

At least you didn't say they worked well. Hey, let's look at some input device "theory" shall we?

1. You store information in your brain. It's chemical. It's analog.
2. You want that information in your computer. It's electric. It's digital.
3. Can it possibly be that the best way to bridge these two qualitative gaps is by wiggling physical limbs over hard plastic nubbins?
4. Depressingly, the answer appears to be "yes"...
5. So now it's down to a matter of appendages, nubbins and how you wiggle them (feel free to make porn jokes now)
6. Alternate WAN (wiggling appendages over nubbins) techs have risen and fallen. The mouse is a popular WAN... but the guy who came up with the mouse idea (you know, whats-his-name who worked at SRI) also had this bizarre "chord playing" device for input as well... sorta like using an one-handed accordian.
7. Text. We want text input because we're slaves to alphabetic, pseudo-phoenetic written languages.
8. WAN techs must not only be efficient but be acceptable by people as well...
9. So, we need a WAN. It must be text-oriented, efficient and have a high acceptance rate among people.
10. You're answer to that is the keyboard. I work with a guy who turns blue under the eyes without his stylus.... the bottom line is:

We have WANs now that do the job, but we have seen new WANS (mouse, stylus) come along and there is no reason to think that WAN evolution will stop just because we like our F-keys and Num Lock. In 1983 I would never have imagined a mouse. But it happened.

whats up with the no keyboard fetish?

[blaine]

I mean, really, why do people want to do away with keyboards?

Keyboards are quick and efficient. This article says that you'll instead use a 3D interface, and simply touch with your hands what you want to do.

Is it me, or does that sound rather slow and clunky? Do I really want to be waving my arms around just to open a damn program?

Face it: keyboards are still around after all these years because THEY WORK. They might not look futuristic or uber-high tech, but THEY WORK.