Computer advances I'm STILL waiting for...

[Karlos]

mr_a500 wrote:

5. Speech recognition

Whatever happened to that? I'm not saying I want to type a document by saying it, but it might be good for fast OS access like switching windows, running automated tasks or opening programs. Maybe we've already got this, but I haven't seen it.

This seems to be a feature supported in MacOS X if the speech preferences are anything to go by. That said, I haven't tested it.

[Karlos]

mr_a500 wrote:

1. Ultra high res displays and the end of anti-aliasing

It seems these days higher resolution just means bigger displays, but back in 1998 I read an article about IBM prototype displays with 10x the resolution density. Their prototype was 17" but resolution was something like 22,000 x 9,000. This would make anti-aliasing a thing of the past because everything would be as crisp as print on paper. I think they said something about Windows having to support this and that may explain why we'll never have it.

In all fairness, it's one thing to have a device capable of this resolution, but quite another to drive it at any realistic refresh rate. Perhaps if you had 4 graphics cards working in parallel on successive portions of the display, each with their own DVI connection to your super duper high res display you manage it... ;-)

[Karlos]

I've seen 3D desktop environments tested before. I think the consensus is that they are visually disorienting for too many people to be genuinely useful compared to more traditional methods.

A better system for accessing large amounts of open windows is expose (gah, another mac thing, I must be going soft in my old age), where you can readily see all your open windows on the display in one go...

[Karlos]

I'd rather see "Neural Nanonics" like those discussed in Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn, but something tells me that type of thing is a bit far off (if it ever happens)...

[Karlos]

bloodline wrote:

I have and it works really well... but I feel uncomfortable have to speak actions which usually I do without thinking about them... Also you can't use it in a socal environment (like a Coffee Shop) and it annoys anyone else in the vacinity.

For a minute I thought you were talking about your [d]socks[/d] mac...

Not sure about annoying but doing it in a coffee shop is likely to put people off their drinks. Especially anything foamed...