Evolution in HCI
Earlier today I was carrying the laptop through the house, tucked under my arm, and I thought to myself: I couldn't have imagined ten years ago that by today I would have not one but several computers in my own house, and they would be so compact and portable, and so much more powerful and more genuinely useful than what we had access to back then. It made me wonder briefly what technology we would come to take for granted in another ten years from now.
Then only moments later, a friend sent me a link to this video and it was like being hit with a vision of the future.
The way this works actually seems quite simple, and I think it probably would have been commercially available much sooner only we've had to patiently wait for advances in technology to make it more accessible and cheaper to manufacture, as tends to be the case with anything new in computing.
I understand the mobile phone industry is expected to move in this direction following Apple's success with the iPhone, but I see a future where all of our electronic entertainment, computers and communications devices will be controlled in a similar way.
We've become accustomed to using a mouse and/or keyboard to control our computers, and using an interface incorporating drop-down menus and folders which mimic a typical office filing system; even my TV with its Sky+ box has a multi-tier menu system and a remote control with 41 buttons, most of them single-use. There are many variations but they're all based on the same design.
We depend much more these days on being able to share data between different devices and access it no matter where we are. So it's natural that we should want to be able to juggle this data more rapidly, not just by utilising speedy broadband connections and lots of RAM, but with interfaces that can actually keep up to speed with our thought processes. Face it, that keyboard is just slowing you down (plus, you're getting RSI from using it all the time).
We're encouraged to 'browse' our computers, which for me conjures an image of wandering around somewhat aimlessly, waiting to spot something potentially useful. I don't have time to browse, I already know what I want and I'd just like to retrieve it, make use of it, and move on.
I don't think this 'surface computing' is another passing trend, this will replace the use of a mouse and keyboard for everyone and will become the next stage in the evolution of human-computer interaction.