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A New Paradigm For Web Browsing
dsaci points out a New York Times article about how surfing the web may change to a more graphics-based endeavor. With the advent of devices like the Wii and the iPhone, the capability to directly control objects on a screen is becoming a popular and affordable technology. That, combined with immersive interfaces such as Piclens, could be the future of web browsing. Quoting:
"'I've wondered for a long time why the computer interface hasn't changed from 20 years ago,' said Austin Shoemaker, a former Apple Computer software engineer and now chief technology officer of Cooliris. 'People should think of a computer interface less as a tool and more as a extension of themselves or as extension of their mind.' Voice, too, is finally beginning to play a significant role as an interface tool in a new generation of consumer-oriented wireless handsets. Many technologists now believe that hunting and pecking on the tiny keyboards of cellphones and P.D.A.'s will quickly give way to voice commands that will return map, text and other data displayed visually on small screens."
Talk is cheap. All this balderdash about next-gen interfaces, 3D, voice control, blah-blah-blah and how your great ideas will revolutionize the industry. Well, let's see it! How about some examples? The windowed GUI was an obvious quantum improvement for the vast majority of computer users (yes, I realize that on /. command line is king) but there has been no movement forward for nearly 20 years. Most importantly, the GUI window paradigm worked well. Let's see your prototypes rather than just more "big ideas" or is this simply a rehash of the "one day we'll have flying cars" speech, applied to computers?
I have to admit that I didn't agree with his ideas, but Jef Raskin, RIP, (original concept for Macintosh, "Swyft", "Canon Cat") was one of the few designers who was brave enough to take a clean-slate approach to interface design and then *implement* it to see if the ideas stood up to real-world use.
Piclens looks cool and all, but it's just a proprietary program (like Google Earth, really) that happens to run in a web browser.
Want to use it on Linux? Sorry, you're out of luck, it's Win/Mac only for now; they say there'll be a Linux port one day; but as this is a proprietary technology, you won't get Linux support until they deign to implement it.
Want to use it with Opera? Sorry, you're out of luck, it's IE/Safari/Firefox only for now; and it will probably remain so, as they say they're not interested in supporting minority browsers; and as it's a proprietary technology, Opera can't add their own support for it.
Want to use it on an iPhone? Sorry...
This is not a step forward.
I don't know. In the 80s, back in the days of MS-DOS, I vowed never to switch from a CLI. A GUI (on a regular PC) was not only slow as molasses, I could think and type faster on a keyboard than use those new-fangled things called mice. I bought one just for the heck of it. It came with a primitive paint program and a TSR for shortcuts. I figured it'd have a niche but it would never hit mainstream. I wasn't the only one who felt that way. There's a lot of skepticism judging from the posts so far, but who knows? Resistance is normal I guess at the start. We'll have to wait and see.
But what REALLY gets to me is when the device just quetly hangs once it's gone into standby mode. With the phones, it meant I silently dissapeared off the cell network until I realised there was a problem, which is usuazlly when I try to use the device.
I have some friends with the newer HTC phones, and they report that WM6 seems to be more stable, but a few of them have reported serious problems with battery life.
I think there are a lot of things we need to sort out with mobile devices before we look at redoing the interface.
The keyboard works, 100% of the time. Its easily understood. Its robust. It fails gracefully - you immediately see if you've made a mistake before submitting a command.
True, but they should be focusing on other methods of input.
This could be anything from the one handed keyboard, ear canal senor that detects tongue movement, or mouse cursor that follows eye movement.
Personally, I'd wouldn't mind having an electrode in my arm or back if it means I could use small muscle movements to input text and mouse movement but that might be a hard sell to the average joe.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Well, the problem with that is that you have to look at the darned device to do anything. Speaker independent voice recognition works quite well already on a Nokia N95. You hold a button, speak a name from your address book, and it not only displays and speaks what it thinks you want for confirmation, but it also has a list of next best guesses. You're not going Captain Picard with the thing, but it works well with minimal input. In noisy areas, just hold it close and speak up. You can't say that with most "smart" phones like iPhone and it doesn't demand your eyeballs if, for instance, you really need to place a call while driving. I use it all the time in preference to the keyboard because it beats flipping through the hundreds of address book entries in my phone. I like that direction in UI and hope we continue to see more of it rather than dwell on how glossy and cool our phones look.
I type over 70 WPM using what you term muscle twitches. With a very small amount of training I can use voice recognition software at over 160 WPM and it doesn't involve strain (other than the mental "strain" of enunciating). Aside from that, nothing is ever misspelled (homonyms and other nuances are all you must worry about).
/. ... or if not you'll sure send them a text message using T9 instead of just pounding out each letter individually. Tell Fisher Price about that.
People talk all day (ask my mother-in-law) without losing their voice or straining any muscles, but have you ever typed literally all day? It is unreasonable to expect someone to type as fast as they can dictate with the same amount of training in each.
On Vista saying "open notepad" is much faster than trying to remember where it is buried on the menu. People can pick up a mic with a list of key words in front of them and more easily use the computer than they could with a mouse. Other just touching what they want instead of determining the difference between left-click, right-click, double-click, drag, etc... This is the reason that programming languages that read closer to English are usually more popular, they're simply easier to pick up and understand. Nobody wants to remember syntax.
Maybe you shouldn't talk about things you have no experience in, let alone try to make analogies that bare no relevance to the discussion. Maybe your closed-mindedness is the reason that interfaces haven't changed much, but I'm willing to bet that you will get on your Iphone and call all your friends to discuss how stupid this poster named OMNI-something was on