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Is this the End of Typing? The Internet's Next Billion Users Want Video and Voice (foxnews.com)
An anonymous reader shares a WSJ article: The internet's global expansion is entering a new phase, and it looks decidedly unlike the last one. Instead of typing searches and emails, a wave of newcomers -- "the next billion," the tech industry calls them -- is avoiding text, using voice activation and communicating with images. They are a swath of the world's less-educated, online for the first time thanks to low-end smartphones, cheap data plans and intuitive apps that let them navigate despite poor literacy. Incumbent tech companies are finding they must rethink their products for these newcomers and face local competitors that have been quicker to figure them out. "We are seeing a new kind of internet user," said Ceasar Sengupta, who heads a group at Alphabet's Google trying to adapt to the new wave. "The new users are very different from the first billion." A look at Megh Singh's smartphone suggests how the next billion might determine a new set of winners and losers in tech. Mr. Singh, 36, balances suitcases on his head in New Delhi, earning less than $8 a day as a porter in one of India's biggest railway stations. He isn't comfortable reading or using a keyboard. That doesn't stop him from checking train schedules, messaging family and downloading movies. "We don't know anything about emails or even how to send one," said Mr. Singh, who went online only in the past year. "But we are enjoying the internet to the fullest." Mr. Singh squatted under the station stairwell, whispering into his phone using speech recognition on the station's free Wi-Fi. It is a simple affair, a Sony Corp. model with 4GB of storage, versus the 32GB that is typically considered minimal in the developed world. On his screen are some of the world's most popular apps -- Google's search, Facebook's WhatsApp -- but also many that are unfamiliar in the developed world, including UC Browser, MX Player and SHAREit, that have been tailored for slow connections and skimpy data storage.
It always amused me that Scotty, who had apparently never touched a keyboard and mouse (let alone would have had no familiarity with the software used in the 1980s) was able to pick up that keyboard after learning voice wouldn't work, and smash away and within 5 seconds he had come up with the blue-print for transparent aluminum despite not having any knowledge of touch-typing or the software being used.
I haven't seen that in a while. But I thought he started out doing the two finger hunt an peck thing and progressed quickly. I took it as showing that Scotty was extremely adept at picking things up. Plus it's a movie, would you have stayed in the theater if it spent 45 minutes of him poking at a keyboard?
It's like when hackers on TV shows come across a network they've never seen before... smash a few keys and they're instantly connected to everything on the network and instantly know how to operate it all.
Don't forget the spinning graphics with no command line at all.
"Hmm, I am having problems with this puzzle, I will check youtube for a playthrough on how to solve it."
*finds playthrough, clicks on video*
"WHATS UP GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYS!!!!"
*close tab*
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