
The future of the human-computer interface? - ohjeez
https://insights.hpe.com/articles/say-goodbye-to-your-keyboard-1708.html
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acjohnson55
If mere thought is input to the computer, then why should its output be
presented to you as a physical stimulus? Like, why would there be a hologram
telling you how to cook a recipe when it could just present itself as a
hallucination? Better yet, save the time and make it seem like a memory of
something you already know how to do. Or why not have the program operate your
physical body directly? Or why not give you nourishment and produce the food
experience completely virtually, a la The Matrix?

~~~
davidivadavid
So this article wants us to believe that we're going to find revolutionary new
ways of communication but meanwhile we'll all still be cooking in the same
inefficient way.

To me that sounds like 1950s predictions of the future showing us how mailmen
will deliver letters with jetpacks. Anyone can do that kind of stupid
extrapolation. But what's the equivalent of email in that scenario?

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noncoml
Anybody willing to take a bet that my keyboard is not going anywhere in my
lifetime?

The first time I was told that voice recognition is here and my keyboard is
going away was about 20 years ago. Here I am today, still strangling to have
Alexa understand simple commands.

Thought controlled input? Forget about it in this lifetime.

~~~
melling
How old are you? It’s really not that hard to imagine the keyboard being
replaced by one, or a combination, of technologies in the next decade or two.

Voice has gotten dramatically better in the past few years. Another decade?
There are also gesture technologies:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0)

Anyway, if you’ve got 3 or 4 decades of life, you still think we won’t have
sufficient advances to replace the keyboard?

~~~
jodrellblank
I can't imagine what a replacement would look or behave like. You can
_replace_ your keyboard with almost anything that proxies human to computer,
but nothing else is the same or as capable.

The radar video is impressive (as were Leap Motion videos, which didn't live
up to the hype), and sure it makes sense for extending a watch or phone, but
the problem with autocorrect and voice recognition and predictive keyboards
and spell checkers is _much of the time, I 'm not writing clear, coherent,
English sentences_.

Sufficient advances to write foreign words and jargon and deliberate
misspellings and usernames and hostnames and slang and quotes which are
deliberately not spelled normally?

A lot of the claims about "you'll just think it" hide the reality - e.g. when
I try to speak a password and I can't, because it's just a pattern of motion
(and you can't escape this overall problem by saying you won't need passwords
in the future).

Human hands are dextrous and sensitive, almost no other body parts are
anything like as much - voice is laborious and prone to problems of
pronunciation and tiredness and background noise and homonyms, anything else
isn't going to come close until you can have brain surgery implants - and even
then a) no thanks and b) I bet that still underestimates the complexity of
reading clear intent.

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jehna1
I'm calling bull.

I would not trust some device to read my thoughts to write them to a Word
document. Random thoughts are too uncontrollable.

I would not trust my phone to connect automatically to any device, I see
that's a huge risk.

I would not trust my computer when I talk to it. Anyone can hear the
conversation and it's disturbing in public spaces to other people.

We saw this happen with Google Glass. People need interfaces they can trust,
that are not intrusive.

~~~
tigershark
I would love to be able to write code just with my thoughts. With the keyboard
is not that bad, but in certain moments feels like the main bottleneck.

~~~
jehna1
I recommend reading an article about dude who was unable to code with his
hands, so he uses voice commands to code faster than with keyboard[1].

[1]:
[http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/using_voice_to_code.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/using_voice_to_code.html)

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chvid
"Expect the way you interact with your laptop, tablet, and smartphone to
change a lot in the next five to 10 years."

I am going to bet the opposite; we will interact with laptop, phones and
tablets roughly in the same way as we do now in ten years. Voice control,
thought control and VR headsets will be mostly a dud for anything beyond games
and novelty.

~~~
DanBC
We said that about touch, and now most human-computer interaction is via touch
screen.

~~~
imtringued
Tablets and smartphones are a new device class which increased the amount of
human-computer interaction. You're implying we also mostly use touch screens
on previously existing platforms like desktops, laptops, gaming consoles and
TVs. Those platforms haven't changed their primary input method to touch.

~~~
DanBC
Nintendo DS, 3DS, 2DS, WiiU, Switch, and Sony PS Vita are all touch screen.

~~~
leggomylibro
They also all have directional pads, joysticks, and tactile buttons.

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ameen
There's a lot bandied about "Thought control" or brain controlled devices to
replace existing HCIs, but many fail to realize that our input devices aren't
just used for input but are tools which help us amplify our thought process.

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quikoa
This reminds me of this 'Big Head' scene from Silicon Valley:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jroQCyWwEgE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jroQCyWwEgE)

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Animats
When a device can do all that, it won't need you.

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imtringued
A whole lot of talk with nothing to show for.

The first iPhone was released 10 years ago and it was an actual product you
could buy.

The only concrete device they linked was
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534206/a-brain-
computer-i...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534206/a-brain-computer-
interface-that-works-wirelessly/).

"Blackrock has begun selling the wireless processor, which it calls
“Cereplex-W” and costs about $15,000, to research labs that study primates.
Tests in humans could happen quickly, says Florian Solzbacher, a University of
Utah professor who is the owner and president of Blackrock. The Brown
scientists have plans to try it on paralyzed patients, but haven’t yet done
so."

It's incredibly expensive and they are primarily using it for animal tests.

If it's so obvious that this is going to replace keyboards, etc within 10
years then show me at least one consumer product that I can buy today for less
than $1000.

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jodrellblank
Great, I can't wait for the voice controlled reimplementation of IRC, the
augmented reality reimplementation of IRC, the holographic reimplementation of
IRC, the node.js JavaScript deep learning in-browser reimplementation of
holographic IRC via websockets, etc.

You've been able to voice control a device and speak reminders for literally
years.

Plugging your smartphone into a TV to use it as a display has been a thing for
at least five years since the Galaxy Note 2, probably long before that.

Devices 'sending information to nearby stores' has been a thing for years with
Bluetooth and WiFi sensing beacons tracking individuals.

The steak/salad/spyware problem exemplified at least 4 years ago here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn7N2UiOYCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn7N2UiOYCk)

 _" Every time I interact with a new piece of technology, I don't want to have
to tell it who I am and type in all my password information. My phone will
tell these devices who I am and that I'm trustworthy."_

Every time _I_ interact with a new piece of technology, I don't want to have
to tell it who I am, so I lie and write some bullshit in the form. My phone
will not tell these devices who I am and that I'm trustworthy, whatever that
means, but it probably won't have any way to lie on my behalf because it's not
really "my" user agent at all, but my proxy in a for-profit exploitative
system I increasingly dislike.

 _Would devices, which connect to our advanced smartphones, share our
information with the company that made them as well as advertisers?_

Because it's not even worth questioning whether they could, should or would
share the information with advertisers, that's just implicitly assumed and
accepted as fine. It's the scary "manufacturer" we should be concerned about.

 _If a senior citizen is having memory problems, for example, instead of
immediately being placed in assisted living or a nursing facility, they could
use a smart headset or ear piece that act as cognitive assistants, reminding
them to take their medications or to turn off the stove. [..] "At the end of
the day, one of the most profoundly helpful use cases will be in elder care,"
says Satyanarayanan. _

For some definition of 'care' which involves +1 rugged American independence
(tm) and absolutely no human interaction if at all possible.

 _Your friend might say, 'Wait! You have to wait till the oil is sizzling' It
will guide you in real time._

It will criticize in real time. (Hi mom).

 _" We'll get to a point where I don't have a smartphone or a laptop. The
computers will just be all around us."_

And each one requiring an account, a login, a micropayment, a license
agreement, an AUP, and tracking every interaction with it. Sweet.

No, just no to all this future.

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harrygeez
I have little doubts decades from now I will still be mashing code on a
keyboard. Maybe not a physical keyboard but something out of Tony Stark's lab.

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carapace
The interesting assumption is that people control their thoughts.

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Pinkertron
Just more shit to break.

