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Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies
MidVicious writes "From futuristic 'Punch Cards' to Voice Recognition HoloDeck Interfaces, human/computer interactions have always mirrored the base concepts of our emerging technologies. An article from a Saarland University CS Seminar highlights Hollywood history with UI, ranging from the moderately feasible (Total Recall's television/scenery display wall) to the often ridiculous (Swordfish's 6-flat screen monitor setup complete with 3-D virus-hacking environment). An interesting read, especially considering some of the technology is on its way to becoming a reality."
Am i the only one who notices punching keys is all they do in movies? even tho they have a graphical UI
As sad as this is... Ive actually thought about that too. What follows is my attempt to justify the technology and what must be going on, with what you would see on the screen.
Lets say that Picard(on the bridge) taps his badge to ask for Riker(not on the bridge). This is how that might work;
1)Picard taps the badge to initiate the comm link.
2)Picard begins the link by stating who he is, and who he is attempting to contact.
3)With just a few second delay, the computer could derive from the audio who the intended recipient is.
4)Having cached the entire audio to determine who is the recipient, the ships comm system then forward this cached audi(mith a few second delay) to the recipient.
5)When the recipient hears the request come through on their badge, the link is already established, and there is no more need for a delay.
6)conversation proceeds as normal.
And no fair to the guy who said "you need to get laid". To that I say... "You need to stop getting laid, we have enough friggin people here!"
Maybe the crew liked having the freedom of not having their every move recorded. IE the computer only tracked someone down when it was asked to (by command staff even maybe?), rather than maintaining continual tabs on everybody all the time.
Not saying that's the rationale for TNG... but I wouldn't mind a future where it was.
Something tells me that they didn't quite grasp the concepts at work in some of these films, like criticising the metropolis interface for making the 'user' work. The workers in metropolis weren't users, and they didn't interface with the machines, they were slaves to the machines and just carried out the machines instructions, they didn't have any input, they just performed physical labour acording to the machines instructions. The clock thing was like a relay, but with a person doing the physical labour. They seemed to miss the whole point of that scene.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?