Sunday 26 December 2010

The future of input technology

Kinect hacks let you control a web browser and Windows 7 using only The
Force (updated) -- Engadget
<http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/25/kinect-hack-lets-you-control-a-web-browser-using-only-the-force/>

This is getting more mature. TVs with web cams and this sort of
technology will soon be with us. There's a limited set of gestures
consumers will be willing to learn so the utility is limited for the
mass market in the short term. Gaming may have new avenues though. With
time and exposure people will become used to standardised movements and
the vocabulary of gestures will increase.

Text input remains a challenge but voice command technology may get
better so people can simple say what channel they want. In fact high
quality speech recognition could mean this technology won't hit the
shelves apart from gaming. This is the hard thing predicting what
technology will be seen in the mass market. Robustness is very important
as is capturing the imagination of the markets who will push products to
the early adopters and eventually the mass market.

Early adopters are willing to put up with some of the idyosyncracies and
bugs of early implementations of these advaned technologies but the
thing which holds back many technologies from mainstream success is
these bugs. Companies really need to get the technology to work
successfully for the average person unless the product has very high
utility for a specific purpose, for example the spreadsheet and email in
the workplace.

It's one of the barriers for mobile AR gaming. It's the very latest
generation of high end smartphones that offer the hardware needed to
make these workable. Fast processors and accurate sensors aren't
available as standard on mass market phones. By 2012 they will be and
mobile gaming will finally be the hit it was expected to be. It's
already started to become the new frontier with hundreds of thousands of
apps made for the iPhone and Android phones. AR technology takes it one
step further and the phone is the only platform capable of engaging in
the new gaming frontier. Whole new avenues of gaming will be created.

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We It comes in part from an appreciation that no one can truly sign their own work. Everything is many influences coming together to the one moment where a work exists. The other is a begrudging acceptance that my work was never my own. There is another consciousness or non-corporeal entity that helps and harms me in everything I do. I am not I because of this force or entity. I am "we"