amigadave wrote:
Think of something closer to the HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - A Space Odyssey".
Not going to see that within your lifetime.
amigadave wrote:
The shrinking and making more portable of technology that we already have does not "float-my-boat", though it is convenient and a bit interesting.
I dunno, the technological leaps in low power and batteries that are being developed from the commercial success of mobile phones is very cool. Just shows what can be accomplished if it makes money.
amigadave wrote:
I hope I am around to see the next leap forward in computing, by my standards. It will be fun to interact with a certain level of artificial intelligence far beyond what we have today in appliances, robotics, transportation, commerce, etc.
Unfortunately I do not think you (or I) will be here to see that.
amigadave wrote:
I think the next step in that direction will be the continuing work on improving voice recognition for input. Typing will soon no longer be the primary method of computer input everywhere. I already talk to the computer in my car.
Full voice recognition is a commercial flop and so a lot of the research into it was cancelled about 10 years ago. The consumers were not comfortable talking to their equipment, it was pretty useless in the office environment. With no commercial driving force, only dictation software and Voice Tags in phones have been funded (and both are still pretty crap). The same thing happened with video phone. Technologically possible for many, many years but not developed due to lack of commercial success or interest.
It is a shame but consumerism is still the driving force for computer development.
What is going to happen is more likely a textual and optical interface. We are already starting to see very natural multi-touch interfaces and at university we developed cursor technology which followed where you were looking.
But I think we can see the keyboard present for the rest of our lives. Just look at the tablet PC. IMHO an amazing move forward that just did not take off due to the poor quality software support and such a love of the keyboard.
If I can make a prediction for the future... the next revolution in computer interaction will be the 2nd information revolution. The first revolution was the internet, opening up almost unlimited information at the click of a button to anyone at a workstation... soon it will be information ANYWHERE at the click of a button. But more importantly it will become accepted, as much as having the internet at home is today.
Anyone who has their computer in the living room will tell you how consumer orientated this is. Something comes on TV, or in conversation and you can look up the details on the net instantly.
I would still like to think there is a possibility that SMART devices (household devices like the fridge, cooker, TV etc. all on the internet) could still take off... but I said that 10 years ago and they were a commercial flop
I'd still like an interactive Tesco ordering system on the fridge or the ability to buy items in TV adverts and in shows via mail order at the click of a button.
