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mac_droz
How true. I'd love to be able to use keys instead of mouse, but most of the ...
GerardS
My feeling is that all these more "natural" interfaces will make us aware how ...
Tech 2025; from sci-fi to the new horizon
Sylvie Barak
6/26/2012 5:03 PM EDT
Motion control - present and future
Motion control captured people's imagination with the film “Minority Report”, and Primsesense was the first company out of the gate with a technology that came close to the concept (later integrated into Microsoft’s Kinect). But it hasn't evolved much since then.... has it?
A: First, we need to keep in mind that motion control is not simple. Again, assuming price is not an object, you can create a lot of solutions – however, “price is not an object” belongs more in the movies than in the hi-tech. I think a lot of progress is being made in the area of motion control. Primesense has its competitors; companies like Open Motion and Samsung which now allows gesture control for its TVs instead of using the remote. Motion control is up and coming, with lots of innovation ahead of it.
There are still major technical challenges to having motion sensors that can work well everywhere for any situation, in order to have a seamless experience. Can that be overcome? Do we have to wait until 2025 for that to happen?
A: Considering where we are today, I have no doubt that by 2025 motion control will be quite practical in many areas of our lives.
Maybe by 2025 we will be tired of digitally communicating and will want to get back to real-life communicating?
A: It is very hard to tell when exactly, and 2025 sounds like a fine target for it, but communication will become natural and literally unnoticeable. I believe the ease of digital communication will become comparable with the ease of real-life communication, and they will become so intermingled that it will be hard to decide what is what. Also, even today, can you say that digital communication is not a part of our real-life communication?
How will gesture and voice control change us psychologically? After all, humans became "human" by making tools with their bare hands. We’re a tactile bunch. We like to touch things.
A: If anything, voice and gesture control will only make us more human, not less. This is how we control everything today – we tell people what to do, and we show people what to do – using voice and gestures. In 2025, we will be able to do the same thing comfortably with machines, so our communication will only become more natural, not less, as we won’t have to make much distinction between communication with humans or with machines.
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Motion control captured people's imagination with the film “Minority Report”, and Primsesense was the first company out of the gate with a technology that came close to the concept (later integrated into Microsoft’s Kinect). But it hasn't evolved much since then.... has it?
A: First, we need to keep in mind that motion control is not simple. Again, assuming price is not an object, you can create a lot of solutions – however, “price is not an object” belongs more in the movies than in the hi-tech. I think a lot of progress is being made in the area of motion control. Primesense has its competitors; companies like Open Motion and Samsung which now allows gesture control for its TVs instead of using the remote. Motion control is up and coming, with lots of innovation ahead of it.
There are still major technical challenges to having motion sensors that can work well everywhere for any situation, in order to have a seamless experience. Can that be overcome? Do we have to wait until 2025 for that to happen?
A: Considering where we are today, I have no doubt that by 2025 motion control will be quite practical in many areas of our lives.
Maybe by 2025 we will be tired of digitally communicating and will want to get back to real-life communicating?
A: It is very hard to tell when exactly, and 2025 sounds like a fine target for it, but communication will become natural and literally unnoticeable. I believe the ease of digital communication will become comparable with the ease of real-life communication, and they will become so intermingled that it will be hard to decide what is what. Also, even today, can you say that digital communication is not a part of our real-life communication?
How will gesture and voice control change us psychologically? After all, humans became "human" by making tools with their bare hands. We’re a tactile bunch. We like to touch things.
A: If anything, voice and gesture control will only make us more human, not less. This is how we control everything today – we tell people what to do, and we show people what to do – using voice and gestures. In 2025, we will be able to do the same thing comfortably with machines, so our communication will only become more natural, not less, as we won’t have to make much distinction between communication with humans or with machines.
Go to next page for continuation...
Next: Stargazing
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David Ashton
6/26/2012 9:12 PM EDT
@ "Back to the Future" promised us hoverboards and flying cars by 2012, but we still don't have those.
"2001" promised us Moon bases 11 years ago, and we don't have those either...
"3001" promises us a decent human society by then. Forgive me if I have some doubts there too...
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Bert22306
6/27/2012 9:07 PM EDT
I dunno, most of the time when I see people explaining how some technology never made it, or isn't already here, I find myself disagreeing.
Internet TV? That's most of the TV I watch anymore. Never had or wanted cable or satellite. I use terrestrial DTV for live news, and just about exclusively watch anything else from various web sites. Including the major TV networks' own web sites, including European news programs from their web sites, Hulu, and so on. All on a nice TV, with good audio, while sitting on a couch. What more Internet TV do you want?
I've heard people complaining that the video phone was never invented. Really? The practical and cheap video phone was "invented" with the IETF Real Time Protocol, along with MPEG digital compression algorithms, back in the early 1990s. Want an actual box? Think Skype over a tablet, for example.
In my car, I can call anyone without touching a keypad. The system uses voice synthesis and voice recognition. So that's already here.
Seems clear that there will be much more of this, and it also seems to me that we'll see a lot more driving automation. Cars communicating with other cars and with the roadway. Motion sensing as an I/O technique, for sure.
Whatever you want to predict has to make some economic sense, though. I'd bet we will see bases on the moon, or on asteroids, if we want to extract minerals from those parts. And wouldn't that be interesting.
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Duane Benson
6/28/2012 4:02 PM EDT
First, my kids generation is that last that will need to learn to drive.
The PC will still exist but the form will be completely different. Something roughly analogous to what we use today will be around, but largely for specialized or high-end applications. For the masses, most of us will have our PC in our pocket and will just be able to wirelessly connect to any I/O devices that happen to be around.
Whatever device we are up against might just be a dumb terminal allowing us to use the processing power in our pocket, or it might be a system that would just take on the personality of our device.
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GerardS
7/10/2012 3:13 AM EDT
My feeling is that all these more "natural" interfaces will make us aware how different we are "under the hood". E.g. touch interfaces don't work for me.
Whenever I tried to use a touchpad, the cursor went any direction but the one I wanted it to go - so I ignore each and every touch interface. I only feel secure if I am allowed to hit keys. Very probably a lot of persons are having similar experinces, but do not dare to tell...
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mac_droz
7/10/2012 3:53 AM EDT
How true. I'd love to be able to use keys instead of mouse, but most of the systems do not allow this (or allow to some extent). It is so much faster to use the keyboard.
I always thought there's something wrong with me :)
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