Hardware has a huge effect on the interface, and output hardware is only half the story. Input hardware needs major improvement.
A modern GUI goes hand in paw with a mouse. Almost every GUI operation involves moving the mouse pointer to a location and clicking. (Even dragging ignores the path the mouse took to get to the mouse-up location.)
To expand the limits of interaction between the computer and the user, we need to increase bandwidth in both directions. Input bandwidth is much lower than output bandwidth. The mouse is an extremely low-bandwidth device:
Assuming...
an average of 1 down-up click per second
a 1 million pixel screen
clicking one of 2 buttons at a time
...that's about 24 bits per second.
By comparison, typing on a keyboard might be more like...
50 words per minute
average of 5 characters per word and one space
7 bits per character
...35 bits per second.
The mouse defines the current state of GUIs. I don't know how much you can change and still keep the mouse/mouse-pointer combination. Touch screens are a start, since it's a little easier to do gestures on them and they have the potential to be more accurate... but I think we can do better. If you want a truly 3D environment, you need a 3D device for input as well as output. I wonder if the real innovation will come with something that lets you use your own body, like a camera that follows your hand and face movements, or better voice recognition.
Re:Some copyright is good (heresy, heresy!)
on
At The Crossroads
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· Score: 1
Copyrights are fine if they are for a limited time and if they are not transferable by the author.
Perhaps we have the means to realize this now. With the ability to manage huge amounts of data, surely we can keep track of and reward the individual authors of works, instead of the publishers they deal with?
Under current US law, corporations have the same rights as individuals. Adbusters ran an article last year about this odd quirk of law. Unlike individuals, corporations can be immortal. Corporations are not motivated by the same things as people. That doesn't make them evil per se, but it does often make them natural enemies of most individuals. To give them the same rights (such as being able to own information) is a grave mistake.
Imagine teh universe is a plastic sheet lying on the floor. The sheet can be flat, having zero curvature (because the second derivative of the sheet "height" is zero), or it can be curved. If it has negative curvature everywhere, it could be something like a sphere. A saddle on the other hand has positive curvature. That is, the second derivative is positive somewhere.
From what I remember of astronomy class, the curvature depends on the second derivative of the spatial dimensions over time:
If it's negative, the universe is "spherical" (that might be the wrong word) and it will eventually collapse back to a point in a "big crunch."
If it's zero, the universe is flat, and it will expand asymptotically towards some maximum size.
If it's greater than zero, the universe is "hyperbolic" (saddle-shaped?) and will expand without limit forever.
Slashdot Mirror
A modern GUI goes hand in paw with a mouse. Almost every GUI operation involves moving the mouse pointer to a location and clicking. (Even dragging ignores the path the mouse took to get to the mouse-up location.)
To expand the limits of interaction between the computer and the user, we need to increase bandwidth in both directions. Input bandwidth is much lower than output bandwidth. The mouse is an extremely low-bandwidth device:
Assuming...
By comparison, typing on a keyboard might be more like...
The mouse defines the current state of GUIs. I don't know how much you can change and still keep the mouse/mouse-pointer combination. Touch screens are a start, since it's a little easier to do gestures on them and they have the potential to be more accurate... but I think we can do better. If you want a truly 3D environment, you need a 3D device for input as well as output. I wonder if the real innovation will come with something that lets you use your own body, like a camera that follows your hand and face movements, or better voice recognition.
Perhaps we have the means to realize this now. With the ability to manage huge amounts of data, surely we can keep track of and reward the individual authors of works, instead of the publishers they deal with?
Under current US law, corporations have the same rights as individuals. Adbusters ran an article last year about this odd quirk of law. Unlike individuals, corporations can be immortal. Corporations are not motivated by the same things as people. That doesn't make them evil per se, but it does often make them natural enemies of most individuals. To give them the same rights (such as being able to own information) is a grave mistake.
From what I remember of astronomy class, the curvature depends on the second derivative of the spatial dimensions over time: