Okay, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and have only just now started thinking about it in depth. Technology seems to be racing along faster than our ability to fully comprehend it and it’s interesting to become the prognosticator.
I try to predict ahead like this whenever I get the chance, and although I haven’t developed a graph on which to chart my results, I like to consider myself fairly accurate.
The stories that kicked this off can be found here and here.
Multiple level parallel-processing meets brain wave input. Sounds pretty damn amazing doesn’t it?
Keyboards and mice have always annoyed me on some level. We’re still using what has become an archaic input format to interact with machines that have become more and more powerful. The machines themselves are capable of so much more than we can use them for because our only methods for communicating with them are simplistic and weak.
The problem for coming up with a new method are two-fold as I see it.
One is education. It took decades for a large proportion of the public to become proficient on keyboards, and as late as the 1980’s people were still hiring clerks and typists based on their ability to “touch-type.” And, finally, after years and years, and the introduction of typing classes in schools, this has become a skill that is less and less important to screen for. But, it took a lot of time to get where we are with our input devices, and introducing a new one (especially one that is more complex – as anything that is based on the old model is sure to be) is likely to be met with disapproval.
The second problem is one of wide-spread adoption. This problem has its roots in a number of other problems. With our culture of ownership the new input device is sure to be proprietary and therefore available on a smaller basis; and if it isn’t owned and patented it will suffer from diversion (meaning that each iteration of it will be different – some subtle and others complete).
So, here we have sat for years, waiting for something else to make itself clear. I’ve always known that the input method that might supplant the keyboard and mouse duo would have to be something revolutionary. It would have to be something that was completely different from what we were used to, and it would have to be easier to use. Which, by the way, is a third problem…
Into the picture walks NeuroSky who, if you read the link above you’ll know, has developed what appears to be one of the first input methods based on brainwaves. The device scans your brainwave patterns and makes inferences based on your frame of mind.
Which means a lot of things. Mostly, for the free market, it seems to mean some interesting video games in the future. For the government, it represents a better lie detector. And for computer users everywhere it might signal the first step to a better input method.
I’m not sure of the logistics of shaping your brain waves so that the computer you’re working on knows to highlight a word in a document you’re working on, delete it and replace it with another, but imagine that office. People sitting in front of monitors at a desk, with no keyboard or mouse, switching quickly between applications and doing their work without even bothering to move.
