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Tangible Interfaces for Computers
Jesrad writes "A friend pointed me to this impressive demonstration of the SenseTable by James Patten, of the Tangible Media Group project of the MIT. This project aims at conceiving better human-machine interfaces by using the concept of physical objects that the user can manipulate, to represent abstract computer data and commands. The device looks and works a lot like what was envisioned in Minority Report, it uses pressure to track blocks on a sensitive surface, and feeds back to the user by superimposing graphical data. Want to change the volume of your MP3 player? Just put a block on it and turn like you would a radio knob. Menus and commands are accessed by moving a block along command hierarchy, represented in a simple tree, or by touching the command's name. So far it only lacks a device for text input, like a keyboard, but maybe voice recognition will replace it?"
I've seen virtual keyboards, but this is beyond amazing. I do not think in a few years we will be able to recognize a computer. It will have evolved that much.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
yea...like...movies are going to have better war rooms now...not only can there be fighting in the war room, but they can throw stuff!
... just press the button to type the specific character?
One could even have different keyboard layouts being switchable with a knob... oh, wonder, wonder!
Feel free to add other irony below...
Dang, Slashdotted already. That didn't take long.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
So why can't you just put a volume knob on that MP3 player?
Now we just have to convince the guys who make these to associate with the Tangible Media people. Minority Report indeed.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
SCOTTY: Computer....Computer? (Technician hands SCOTTY the mouse. SCOTTY uses it as a microphone) Hello, computer.
TECHNICIAN: Just use the keyboard!
SCOTTY: The keyboard? How quaint!
I wonder if the footprint of these devices would be prohibitive for many people's home and work environments where space could be at a premium. Still, this thing rocks.
"Where's the any key?"
You'll have to reply with "Well where did you leave it last?"
Paul Lenhart writes words!
"So far it only lacks a device for text input, like a keyboard, but maybe voice recognition will replace it?"
Or maybe they'll just plug a keyboard into it? Voice recognition may well have its uses, especially as an accessibility technology, but as a general input device it's really a pretty poor idea.
Unless we're all supposed to sit in a cone of silence or something.
KFG
While various varieties of tangible interfaces might be useful in specific circumstances, the typical user doesn't want more crap on their desk. They want a flat, easily positioned, brillant screen (or three). They want a keyboard (which could be virtual, but most people prefer some tactile feedback for typing). They want something for pointing (which could be a glove, a mouse, entirely virtual, ...) They don't want a metaphor that looks like Play-School.
i can't feel my mouse!
So far it only lacks a device for text input, like a keyboard, but maybe voice recognition will replace it?
I talk to my computer enough as it is. The day that it actually listens to me is that day that I'll have to rebuild it every other week, and red will be the day when it starts talking back to me.
What if they make the blocks smarter by building a display on the top-surface, wheels on the bottom, and a processor inside? The block-top interface could display additional information. The table could automatically move the blocks into an pre-designed configuration (or adjust the configuration to match user-initiated movements of some other blocks). The wheeled mechanism could provide haptic-feedback as the user moves the blocks along the table. Distributed processing among the wirelessly networked blocks could help sense what the user is doing.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
A concept like this one has already been explored at MIT with the Audiopad (Google Cache), used to make music but really could be used as a new, innovative kind of interface.
What I'm waiting for is for someone to combine that Linux HD of the PS2 and the EyeToy into a Minority Report type interface.
...than this movement-sensitive plastic block I have on my desk right now. It actually responds to the physical movements of my hand and includes pressure-sensitive areas that allow me to interact with virtual desktop metaphors. I can actually move this device over the virtual mp3 player on my desktop and apply pressure to one of the sensitive areas to change to volume.
I thought my keyboard was already pretty tangible, but I just came out of watching Revolutions ... so, my brain hurts now. Maybe I'm still trying to connect what the "pinching" had to do with anything in that movie. Maybe nothing's real! It's all an intangible mess of connectors to something unknown, unreal.
Blah! Hogwash!
It won't work.
The typewriter interface has been with us for over a century. We've become accustomed to it.
I remember watching Minority Report and thinking "people don't like computers now. Do you think they'll be willing to learn such an obviously unintuitive and totally new interface?"
This seemed like it would be especially true outside the tech sector, such as, for instance, in law enforcement.
Remember that the only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned. Some people may use this, yes, but I doubt most. I don't think most can deal with anything beyond using the mouse and keyboard.
Otherwise, the following things would be used, since they're faster even though they have a higher learning curve:
-mouse gestures would be HUGELY in use
-keyboard shortcuts would be known by almost everyone
-everyone would be using vi or emacs in a wysiwsg mode instead of wordpad/notepad/word.
-User interfaces with only a single type of action (clicky-clicky) wouldn't be popular.
When and if this is ever true of most of society, then we'll be ready for the new interfaces.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I bet that what most of the typical users really want is to get all this crap they have off the desk: the monitor smashed in, the keyboard thrown out of the window and the mouse stuffed up the sysadmin's, because the software side of the interface is non-intuitive and can be frustruating to use.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I hate this whole movement. Using computers should become EASIER. Who wants tired arms from searching on the computer or back pain from moving files? I'd prefer to do this stuff with a click of a mouse button.
I think "loseable" would be a better one.. I can't even find the remote control for my TV most of the time (and I have 3 RCs); it would be a BAD idea to have all sorts of controls that do different things and contain state information.. Can you imagine losing the volume knob?
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Even when the technology is perfected to Star Trek standards i.e. you don't even need to think about articulating to make yourself understood by the computer, keyboards will remain the preferred input method of many, including me, simply because it's the fastest. I haven't ever "learned" to type but I average around 100 WPM and peak at 120, without a DVORAK keyboard. I'll rather use that to jolt down an idea, write a letter, program or post at Slashdot than voice recognition.
This work reminds me of the work that Douglas Englebart was doing in the 1960s. And while I think this new interface work is great and needed I also believe that the biggest impediment to adopting new methods are cultural ones. While you could (and should) say that the delay in adoption of Englebart's ideas (windowing systems, a mouse for input) was the technical challenge of bringing these methods to home computing mahcines, you can't forget that cultural forces were also at work slowing down people's acceptance of the GUI.
But a more dramatic example of the slowness of cultural change is the fact that I am typing this on a QWERTY keyboard. Dvorak has been around for years but still we type on devices that show their Victorian age heritage. Even when there is no need at all for the random shuffling of the alphabet across the current keyboard in the way we use it!
Another fine example is the red-headed stepchild of the Englebart revolution; the BAT keyboard. The BAT is supposedly easier to learn to use (I've never tried it myself) than a regular keyoard and is also supposedly more ergonomic than a keyboard, as well. It is aslo easier on the joints (or so they say). Now it's mostly sold for people who have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other injuries/disabilities. But it was originally thought to be a better method for input for everyone (injured/disabled or not) to use.
Englebart was right about most things (which were later refined by others into the form in which we now recognize them), but the BAT just never caught on. Too different, probably, from what people had already been using for over a century.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I can tell you where to stick a greased up Yoda doll. =)
so I can finally sequeze those tits on p0rn sites !! this is very noble I will cry a river.
I've just finished reading that (quite old) book. The book describes MIT media lab as a very special place where lots of cool stuff was going on (ideas/researchers/etc). Is MIT media lab still a special place or just another research lab doing some rather boring and not very innovative stuff?
This sounds like something they may have invented before the mouse. Maybe back in the day it was a bunch of blocks all over your desk that you had to move, then eventually they all got consolidated into one universal interface device, the mouse.
Step in the wrong direction if you ask me.
I can't say who I am really am, but but you could say I certainly enjoy eating a very tasty and common mexican dish, if you know what I mean.
207.126.99.173 and they have alternates on 207.126.99.143 and 207.126.99.165 as well.
Go to work gentlemen,
T
I can understand why some people are appalled by tangible interface concepts. These are the same people that refered to GUIs as WIMPs (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers). For some people, a command line, keyboard-coded interface just works. But it is not the best interface for everyone or every application.
1) Media creation: Who still creates CAD drawings with a keyboard only? I used some early versions of Autocad that where keyboard-only -- they sucked. Sometimes a tangible pointer with a 1-to-1 interface mapping between a 2-D surface and the screen is superior. For artists, the use of an LCD graphics pad and pressure-sensitive stylus means much higher productivity and finer control. (I've even scene academic research suggesting that a two-mouse interface could improve productivity.)
2) Mapping to the Realworld: Go aboard an aircraft carrier and look at how they keep track of flight-deck operations. A miniature replica of the flight deck and miniature aircraft provide an intuitive 1-to-1 mapping between the model and the real-world. I'd bet that they could improve flight deck operations if those little aircraft moved automatically to reflect actual locations and if manual movements of aircraft spawned automatic commands to flight deck personel.
3) Multiuser interfaces: the demos of MIT's system that I have seen (a business-oriented supply chain visualization tool) leverage the table interface for multi-user applications. With the table, anyone around it can reach over and move a block. And everyone can easily see who moved the block.
The power of tangible interfaces is that they can help create a more literal mapping between a digital artifact and the real-world. Sometimes less abstraction leads to better ease-of-use.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I'm certainly not the first poster to comment on this, but I just don't understand why many assume voice input would be the preferred method? That it'd even be better than physical controls (be that keyboard, mouse, switches, joystick, whatever). There's enough aural noise in the environment, even without more; accidental commands, specificity, technical things... And except for niches where it does make sense (if one can not use his/her hands or even legs), there just doesn't seem to be much beyond 'coolness factor'? Just like you can get carpal tunnel syndrome, your throat can go sore etc.; there are no health benefits; people can generally point/click/type faster than talk; GUIs are multi-dimensional (2 currently), speech generally single-dimensional, so there's one less way to distinguish what was the target (ie. no location information)... and so on and on.
Now as to Star Trek and other sci-fi movies (including Minority Report), isn't it fairly obvious why voice input was/is used? It's the easy way to indicate what a character is inputting, and what are the results! Even if it wasn't for futuristic touch, it's so much better for needs of movies and tv series than, say, keyboard input (keyboard and mouse are only shown when realism is needed). Directors are in general experienced and smart professionals, and know that voice input is a very good solution for THEIR problems. Just like even though there hasn't been the need to stay on call for tracing to work for decades now, they still always imply it is, in crime series, just because that's a cheap (albeit unrealistic) trick to add some suspense to plot. Just don't assume they are prophets that show what future will be; just what works for them.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
I do not think in a few years we will be able to recognize a computer. It will have evolved that much.
And the Linux geeks will be using *40* year old Unix commands, raving about vi and the great CLI.
At a glance, this sounds very much like the underlying interface stuff behind the Audiopad project (also from MIT, IIRC) - smart pucks moved around a projected image on the sensing surface. There were a few pucks which controlled various musical loops and one which acted as the microphone (the closer a loop was to the mic puck, the louder it played).
Not that I'm doing anything down - my guess is they're now making more general use of the stuff they'd developed for Audiopad, or Audiopad was just the first application they'd come up with, or something along those lines. Nice to see the technology back again actually, I've got a video of Audiopad and it's pretty cool.
...when it was used by the Asgard on Stargate SG-1
i will really be touching those hot cybergirls? ^^
I really want an intangible interface for computers! Holographics everywhere responding to my voice and movements. A virutal symphony of light, color, and sound as I dance gracefully throughout the room twirling in a ballet of control. Fucking MS Office 2012 sucks now. And that was just to make the text bold...
Webmaster Wanted - Entropic Reactions
Hey,
slashdot managed an MIT web server! (the media lab's) That's not too bad for a saturday.
( the qt movi was embedded in the page, all 5MB of it...)
f
yours ever, fz.
Over half of computer users these days use them at some point to play games, and a good portion of those people play 3D games, oftentimes with a microphone to enhance gameplay.
How are you supposed to control movement, enter text into the chat, and use voice communication all with just your voice?
Personally, I haven't learned how to say three different things at once. But it may be interesting to try.
re: the parent comment.. the audiopad is also done by james patten. so it was him that "already explored" it.
m inous_Ro om/Luminous_Room.html
the reason this work looks like the table in minority report is because john underkoffler, a former member of the same group at the media lab, was science & technology advisor for minority report and designed/spec'd/envisioned/whatever some of the devices used in the film. some of john's research on which that table was based:
http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/Lu
john was also behind some of the other interfaces in the movie like the gloves and the way in which the holographic video worked.
yikes. kindest regards accepted.
mynuts won: trouble thinking beyond fear/hate/ego
*yawn* wow, you mean i can control stuff by moving my hands, and making gestures? and all i need is some holographic projection mechanism, a darkened room, and tons of space?
this is nothing that hasn't been done with touchscreens. this just takes wear and tear out of the equation.
man i wish i was you
The concept makes me think of the controls the Asgard have on their ships. Placing/moving the "stones" can have all sorts of different effects.
End of line..
This is perfect for Dyslexics!
And I should know, I am one.
For Dyslexics and people who have never used a computer before, a command line only interface is a MASSIVE hurdle. A GUI speeds up the time it takes a dyslexic to learn about computers by a factor of 10. A tactile user interface would IMHO speed up the learning (and normal human/computer interactions) by a factor of 1000.
For example I cannot spell, yet I'm asked to write the User Docs for my firms computer systems all the time. If I were in the land of Typewriters, I would probably not even have a job, let alone be asked to write for other people. So the GUI did for my computer interest, the same thing computers with spell check did to my Employability.
As a dyslexic, a TUI (Tactile User Interface) matched with a good 2D or 3D GUI is the Holy Grail.
In fact, a TUI would turn a 3D user interface into use full human/computer interaction method.
The Human brain is designed to work in a 3D space with tactile feedback. Anything else requires the brain to waste resources on "translator system" in order to use things like command line only interfaces. And for Dyslexics, everything is mucked up in "translation".
If computers had been command line only when I was in school, I would not have been interested in them and would not be doing what I am doing right now: Sitting in the office on Saturday night (I'm in London) Posting on Slashdot instead of ironing out the kinks these new computers that my firm just bought.
Wait...maybe GUI's are bad J:)
This project aims at conceiving better human-machine interfaces by using the concept of physical objects that the user can manipulate, to represent abstract computer data and commands.
You mean they're going to invent the mouse and the keyboard? Awesome.
I managed to read the page but can't get at any of the demonstration videos.
Anyway, as for a pressure sensitive table, it sounds like a great idea but... I thought they were working on a table that read variances in the magnetic flux caused by hands moving over the table.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
It's definitely very cool to move the text cursor around, directly linked to the movement of your left index + middle finger (seemingly), and to be able to cut/paste by "picking" text with thumb + index and then "dropping" it :)
Definitely an interesting piece of technology. I can recommend that keyboard, it's worth a try for any geek.
Btw, this was already featured twice: /. story 1, /. story 2.
John Underkoffler is a former member of the Tangible Media Group, and was the science advisor on the film.
Just look what they did to emacs :-O
Seriously, while this probably has niche applications (previous posters have mentioned a few that sound plausible) I don't see that it offers much to the conventional desktop user (a keyboard and mouse require much less movement than the shenanigans Tom Cruise got up to in the movie and, other than keeping office workers fit, these interfaces will just lower productivity).
So what about wearable computers? Something you wear on your belt with a head-mounted display, designed to be used while walking along? Well, to me it doesn't make much sense in this context either: again, if you end up requiring much odd movement on the user's part it won't work. In my opinion the future is far more likely to look like a next-generation of Canon's eye-controlled (pupil-tracking) autofocus system to control a pointer on some head-mounted display coupled with (in the short term) an interface that minimizes the need for text input together with some kind of finger-based character input device[0] or (longer term) speech recognition of a standard where the software doesn't need training and can cope with background noise[1].
[0] There was one mentioned on slashdot ages ago that looked a bit like a gripmaster (key for each finger plus the thumb), and text was typed by entering chords.
[1] Incidentally, how much research has been done on using stereo input to speech recognition programs to reduce background noise? I would have thought that would help quite a lot, albeit at the expense of CPU time.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Maybe it would be good for people who can't (or at least) shouldn't use a mouse anymore. I know at least one person that uses a tablet instead of a mouse because of his CTS.
In addition it would certainly be nice to be able to have more than one focus point on your screen- especially in real time programs like audio and video production (even in non-realtime app, like if you've ever played with Reason you know what I mean). There's also something to be said for increased precision when you don't have to hold down the mouse button.
All in all I think it's best that we not shoot down new ideas simply for being new and different. If we always did that we'd never get anything done.
What I want for development is a wall size display with sensors that can tell where my fingers are and what my eyes are looking at. I want it to recognize gestures for scrolling around, linking, backing up, and so on. That's for examining code. When I write code, I want a keyboard. Voice control might be useful for a few queries, such as Who Wrote This, Where Is This Used, but in general I don't want to spend all day yakking to a computer.
For home use, voice response for controlling a/v, lights, etc, that could be handy, to an extent. Door bell rings, the door camera shows on the TV, I yell TALK and the circuit comes alive so I can talk with the person at the door.
Home use is the tricky stuff. Office use is pretty simplistic and regular, and you don't want much voice control because you'd wear yourself out at the end of the day.
Infuriate left and right
...when there's a small earthquake in your area, and those things bobble across the surface triggering all sorts of weird shit across countless computers..
Throughout time, there has been one hallmark of the existing user interface - despite the absence of any real tactile interface (save the keyboard), it's efficient. It seems like some of these interfaces strip away this efficiency and replace it with flexibility. This isn't a bad thing, but it does lead us to the point that for any given task, we'll need to decide if a given interface will provide the results we need.
I have to say that out of all the examples included on the MIT web site, the one I see with the most promise is the Audiopad. It lends itself to working with music on a more abstract level - mixing, combining, tweaking - in an incredibly fluid manner. It's also very intuitive- you can figure out what's going on just by moving things around. Once you have some basic components at your disposal (a few rhythm tracks, a few musical sequences, a few effects, etc.), it doesn't require endless hours of studying or practicing to produce something interesting.
What makes this even more compelling, is that there are some incredibly cool ways the Audiopad could be expanded. Why have just one mic? Why not two (left and right)? If you really wanted to make it interesting, carry the manipulation space into three dimensions, instead of just two. There are so many possibilities.
The most important question, of course, is when ThinkGeek will begin selling these, because I think I want one.
Before making baseless assertions about new technologies, perhaps you should try out a new system that takes its lead from the infamous Minority Report interface. Kids love it and find it quite intuitive, even though it's only a first cut and could benefit from many improvements. There are many other similar projects out there that have met with varying degrees of success (I'll let you do your own research), but to spout aphorisms like "it won't work, because it's not a nipple" is stupid.
Remember the Italian Restaurant
that was really a time-warp
spaceship? Arguing with the
waiter over the bill caused changes
in the space-time continuum, driving
the ship along.
we can take the fight to the replicators.
but maybe voice recognition will replace it
Yule b lucky
You cant make anything foolproof, they'll only invent better fools.
With a tangible interface comes a new essential peripheral: cleaning fluid. As an alternative: disposable rubber gloves.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
> > Who still creates CAD drawings with a keyboard only?
Just about everyone. I know many many many engineers and have worked in many engineering offices and I have yet to see a digitizer in any of them. With 3D CAD these days there are a few 3D manipulators, but the mouse works just great with a scroll wheel etc.
If you use the mouse, its not keyboard-only. The mouse is a tangible manipulator that provides a good correspondence between X-Y motion of the hand and X-Y motion on the screen. The keyboard is only used in CAD for mode-selection short-cuts, an occasional dimensional entry, or naming of objects/layers/files. Trying to do CAD without a mouse or pointer of any kind is quite hard and inefficient as far as I know.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
"Like in the movies" is no accident. John Underkoffler, a former student of Hiroshi Ishii, was the science advisor on "Minority Report".
Perception is mediated by expectation.
Ok, there was something simular in a recent Batman comic book I read.
Basically, he wore these little lcd projecter things over his eyes, and had a
pair of Minority Report gautlet things, and the information he needed was
superimposed in front of him, monitors, virtual keyboard, everything you need
floating right in front of you. He was able to type in the air, as if it were
actually there. Imagine being to intensity or decrease the
transparency of the controls, and you got something I would give a lot to play with.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
According to IBM's ad in Time magazine, it was "so hot we had to make it red". Ted made an even hotter version in the lab, that had TWO "joy buttons" -- one for each hand!
ONE joy button was so hot they made it red, but the TWO nipple keyboard was too hot even for IBM management to handle.
They tried to come up with a keyboard that was robust enough to withstand all the abuse and body fluids afforded by the two nipples, by experimenting with various sizes of silicon implants and drainage troughs. But users were so enthustiastic that they quickly wore them out, popped the implants, broke their hinges, and busted their nuts.
IBM tried as hard as they could to develop a drool and semen proof keyboard strong enough to support two joy buttons, but it was just too expensive to produce. Rumor has it that Lou Gerstner keeps the only surviving dual-nipple prototype installed on a thinkpad in his executive washroom.
After having his life's work turned in to a corporate executive masturbation device, Ted left IBM to work at MIT Media Labs, where they appreciate the potential applications of digital masturbation to corporate executive sponsors. c(-;
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Let's use our imagination just a little. First, imagine that screen tech gets cheap enough so that anyone can have a 4x8 foot screen. Make a desktop of that screen and you will wonder how anyone ever made themselves stare at a tiny monitor all day. Papers could be laid out so that you can stare at all of the material needed at once and virtual desktops would really rock. A simple window manager like Window Maker would be nice, especially if you could substitute a mouse for one of these block devices. All of the reasonable windowm managers and desktop managers have menues available all over the screen so you don't have to go scrolling all the way to the "start" button. Who wants to scroll a mouse on a goofey little 6x6 inch pad to move around a real desktop? Gone for good will be Microsoft's hideous and non intuitive forest of tabs, right clicks on ugly icons and popup adverts.
Free your mind and you will see where others are going.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The only problem with the use of objects is: I know I'll lose them.
Apparantly Zowie Interactive made a similar toy. It was a pirate ship with serial cable, and moving the pieces around would make your computer respond. Product disappeared without a trace; very little is on the net, and eBay has nothing.
Also apparantly, the company was bought by LEGO, so there may be hope.
These guys have all available info, including a link to the above MIT paper.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
Just like that.
Yes, it's cool to watch. But no:
1. You have to learn it. That round thingies are used for this, star-like thingies for that
2. Implementation shown is not logical. You either project supplemental interface from the top -- then any hand movement distorts it, or from the bottom, where hand movement and physical interface object distort/shadow it. Simple solution?
Make the object virtual.
Oh, wait. Isn't it the type of interface those hollywood designers made for Voyager, where you click, slide, and so on on touch panel?
If avbailable, hand movement scanning technology can be added for those, who are handicapped and can't touch the panel with sustainable force for, say, sliding.
Some form of force feedback or "bulging" of touchable pannel can be used to help track the range of movement.
Imagine how many problems shown tangible interface will bring to someone who has arthritis or bad coordination, or difficulty to grip those thingies. It's much easier to virtualize them and make motions needed to control intuitive.
Example of real life application -- touch-sensitive light switches, where you just tap it. Or you can slide it up for brighter light and down.
Hyperom.com
While this may sound like it's really high-tech, these kinds of user interfaces have been part of science fiction movies and television shows for a long time. After all, you don't need a lot of props or complicated screen simulations to make it look good.
I have a simple question for you then. Why hasn't the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard penetrated the commercial market?
If you truly could increase speed by 20%-40%, then you can reduce your support staff by the same. Large corporations are not stupid; spending a month on training in exchange of the ability to get rid of almost half your typing pool would have been done all over the place. Yet, during the post-war boom, you have no significant increase of DSK. Nor were there mass layoffs of unneeded staff.
Is it possible that everybody in the corporate world was that hidebound, that stuck in the past that they would turn up their noses at a 20% savings? Computers came in like gunbusters, so it's hard to say it was due to a fear of new technology. Nor did businesses continue to refuse to use mice when they came out. The initial dislike was quickly overtaken once the advantages became apparent. Little of the workings of an officeplace have been unchanged over the last 50 years. What miracle of stubborness is there that is keeping the QWERTY keyboard around while all around it has changed?
It sounds more and more like a paranoid fantasy. "If only they weren't suppressing it, Dvorak keyboards would have taken over the world."
Well I am an engineer. And I use (like my co-workers) a 4 button puck on a pad AND a keyboard. Screw the mouse and pull down menus. The keyboard is used for initiating commands (instead of finding a menu - takes too long to move). 4 buttons allow for more options when you get to where you're going.
And the best way is a puck on an LCD. You know, like paper and pencil; the most intutive interface.
The upside of computers is how easy change is.
I want a keyboard where all the secondary keys are not crowded on the right side where my mouse/puck/tablet goes. My keyboard is shifted nearly 10 inches right so that the QWERTY portion is centered.
Want to change the volume of your MP3 player? Just put a block on it and turn like you would a radio knob.
Yeah...but can I turn the volumn up to 11?
When imagining a physical environment, it feels more like a 2D depth map, rather than a 3D vector field. If I try to imagine a very 3D environment, I feel I cannot grasp the scene completely. I guess most people are like this. And I guess this is more natural to implement in the brain (A 2D array of neurons extends to occupy a 3D space, but a 3D array of neurons cannot extend b/c we have only 3D physical space).
Does anyone have more information on this?
"Anything else requires the brain to waste resources on "translator system" in order to use things like command line only interfaces."
/var/log/messages | grep -v pop | awk blah blah blah
That's the part I don't agree with. It took a while to learn the *nix command line interface, but now that I know it, I can think in it. Stringing together something like
tail -f
takes no more thought (for me) than just deciding what I want. In fact, I think in terms of the command shell so much that once when I wanted to hear both sides of a phone conversation, my first thought was "tail -f Emily's phone", and another time I wanted more water in my glass, and my first thought was "cat faucet > glass" I am not joking.
--- 11 meters/second, or 24 miles per hour - the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow. Really.
There's an important distinction to be made between controlling the interface vocally, and simply dictating text. The former has all of the problems you mentioned; the latter not so much, especially for natural language. (Coding... not so good.)
Since years before the Tablet PCs came out, I've envisioned a letter-sized PDA, with the standard stylus interface and voice dictation. Stylus is excellent for interface control, simple and efficient; but I regularly found myself using my old Palm III as a place to write down ideas, and while the nifty collapsing keyboard made that MUCH easier, it was hard to use without a stable flat surface to put it on, and I certainly couldn't use it while walking or driving. Better still, with today's larger screens and more powerful processors, you could create a true virtual sketchpad utilizing concepts from this tactile interface design: the ability to write anywhere, in two dimensions (with rotation, too), then draw circles and lines connecting phrases, and little sketches here and there, all of which are kept track of as objects, and made mobile -- with the connecting lines kept track of! (otherwise I'm describing the average paint program.) A thought-organizing system that doesn't have to know or care what you mean, but helps you remember how you'd linked it together, and allows you to look at it all from different angles. Sort of like a much more intuitive, real-time-modifiable equivalent to <a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/brain/">the KurzweilAI.net Brain</a>. Then again, I've yet to actually look at a Tablet PC. Is something like this implemented?
But I digress. The basic point of speech interfaces is this: when you're sitting down at a table and doing nothing but interacting with your computer, mouse and keyboard are tremendously effective. Not so much when you've got other things you want to do with your time, or with your hands. The current interface is, in a nutshell, DEMANDING. It allows for very little real-world multitasking.