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."

Comments

Yeah good luck with that

[Gothmolly]

Dragon on a reasonably powerful PC might work, but until you can nail 110% correct recognition, in a crowded area, in a shitty little mic on a 400 MHz ARM processor, don't bother. You don't want to start arguing with your PocketPC about traffic and directions: No, I said Springfield, not Slingblade! *crash*

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.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[jay-za]

You are underestimating the practice that years of running Windows has given to the average user. That *crash* will not come as a surprise. There could be a market for a technology that turns the windscreen blue just before the actual crash. Finally BSOD will have a more ... real ... meaning.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[mh1997]

The keyboard works, 100% of the time.

Tyess, thek eypboard isg thew perfeddct ddevicwe4 requirening litttttttttttle skil and is foo l profo.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[calebt3]

Giving the computer bad instructions != the computer misunderstanding those instrutions.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[ShieldW0lf]

Aside from that, for someone who is competent it's faster to type than it is to speak, and it's much faster to twitch your hand half an inch than it is to wave it around touching the screen.

Everything outlined in the article is leading away from integrating technology into your core capacities. It's about taking a tool and turning into a third party agent that you need to interact with as though it were some sort of person.

Making a more efficient computer interface means making the muscle movements involved more subtle, not replacing what efficiencies we have with new paradigms that require gross muscle movements and voice strain.

Integrating mouse gestures into the operating system and and moving to one-handed chording keyboards as a standard would be the right direction.

If the brainless masses want Fisher-Price toys, fine. But lets not pretend that Fisher-Price make better tools.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[jay-za]

It will be on a phone.

Most of the PDA phones available these days (or at least the ones available in South Africa) come with a built in GPS unit, or at least a GPS extension module. Touchy-feely isn't that great an idea when you're driving, so voice becomes an important issue here.

I've never seen one crash. Then again, I haven't had much exposure to Windows Mobile.

As the proud owner of an iMate JAM, an iMate K-JAM and a Mio P550, as well as having a number of friends with older HTCs and other iMates, I can assure you that yes, they do crash. And more annoying than when they crash is when bluetooth, or WiFi suddenly stops working, or when the addressbook suddenly appears empty until you reboot. My presonal favourite is when the handwriting recognition goes for a loop (that's a memory problem, I eventually found out).

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.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[dkf]

You don't want to start arguing with your PocketPC about traffic and directions: No, I said Springfield, not Slingblade! *crash* It could be worse, much much worse: No, I said goats, not goatse! My eyes!

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[MacDork]

you immediately see if you've made a mistake before submitting a command.

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.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[Fred_A]

"Thanks, you've illustrated my point perfectly."

Glad to be of service, but I'd rather use simple voice commands to control a portable device. My cellphone has the ability to dial by voice, recognizing both names and numbers. It's not perfect, but it is usually faster than typing or searching for contacts.

Voice control and other methods are only infants compared to keyboards, but just like the keyboard improved from a mechanical device on a typewriter into a simple multi-function electronic device, other input technologies will improve.

I'm just looking forward to the day when the computer interfaces with my brain and provides all inputs so that I can just lie in some tube and experience the reality that the computer determines is best for me.

Where did I read
"Text-based interfaces have proven that most users can't read.
Graphic interfaces have proven that most users can't understand abstractions.
Mind reading interfaces will prove that most users can't think."

I have little doubt that it will happen that way.

Re:Yeah good luck with that

[OMNIpotusCOM]

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).

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 /. ... 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.

Not only that

[dreamchaser]

I certainly don't want to be on a bus or plane with dozens of people all yakking commands to their devices, nor do I necessarily want to display to the world what commands I am giving to my device. Voice control is nice in certain circumstances, but until they give me a direct neural interface I want keys and/or stylus and/or cursor control and input options.

Yeah, okay, sure... You go first.

[JonTurner]

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.

voice control

[theheadlessrabbit]

voice recognition as it is today is painful.

"Computer, start, programs, Mozilla, fire fox , double you, double you, double you, dot, google, dot, com, search field, violent, asian, porn. I'm feeling lucky. click"

its a slow, painful, annoying as hell process that brings you back to the keyboard and mouse once the novelty has worn off, and only leaves the user feeling ripped off for wasting so much money on a fancy new inferior interface.

voice recognition won't be useful until it is intelligent. I should only have to say "Computer, google porn" and get my results. I shouldn't have to explain to my computer step by step how to open a freaken browser.

Here's an exercise

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an exercise for those who believe voice commands are the way to go for small electronics. Every time you use your cell phone, iPod, PDA or GPS, say each command out loud before entering it. See if you can keep this up for a full day.

I prefer cross-platform standards.

[Haeleth]

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.