Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Editorial: The Future of the Interface

Currently I am working on a report that summarizes what new directions interfaces are going in the future. I wanted to write a quick update about where I am at so far and what interesting information has come up. By the way, I love bullet points, but I'll get to that in another post.
  • Interfaces as we know them will be re-imagined
  • Pioneers will be young engineers with crazy ideas
  • Interfaces will interact with the user
Interfaces as we know them will be re-imagined
One thing that you can always count on is for new, innovative technologies to replace old ones. Innovation has changed the landscape of almost every industry in the world. Innovation often changes the players in the industry because new players simply think differently. Old-timers in an industry are generally stuck in a way of thinking.

Pioneers will be young engineers with crazy ideas
It happened with Microsoft, HP, Google, and almost every other "eBusiness" or tech company. But the fascinating thing is that interfaces that get picked up will be something different than what we think of. We think of using a mouse, then a natural progression is using a "finger" as a mouse, such as MultiTouch. Of course, MultiTouch is a great interface for many applications, but is that all that is new? Engineers will be inventing things we haven't even though of. I could list gesture interfaces, hologram interfaces, and all kinds of crazy things. Of course, if an engineer is inventing something I haven't thought of it makes it very difficult to mention it here.

Interfaces will interact with the user
Currently, most interfaces are static. How have they interacted with the user in the past? Keyboard do offer a tactile feedback and the best example of tactile is ForceFeedback found on joysticks. But do interfaces actually interact with the user? Not really. Interfaces in the future will evolve with use. They will learn how you use the computer. They will help determine optimal placement of each menu item, each key, and each button. They will determine which gestures work best for you.

The last point, that interfaces will interact with the user, is the most interesting to me. I imagine a world where a computer analyzes how you input commands and then optimizes itself to make it easier for you to use. Wouldn't that be amazing?

OLPC 2.0

So the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program has unveiled its next project. It wants to make a $75 laptop that mainly functions as an eBook reader. Have a look at the two functions it will have:



The first function is an eBook reader and is the main priority. The second function is a standard laptop with a touchscreen keyboard, similar to how the iPhone works. This is very innovative, which might also be a problem. Because of the full touchscreen it could be far costlier than project (currently $75) if the displays are not available for cheap. The new project's display depends on the pricing of High Definition (HD) displays manufactured for portable DVD players.

It is definitely a possibility that if large numbers of the new laptops are not ordered, which would have provided economies of scale, the total cost will be much bigger than the estimated $75. OLPC thought they would have millions of laptops sold within a year, which is far from reality (currently around 600,000 units), so not reaching economies of scale is certainly reasonable.

Link: Forbes OLPC 2.0

Monday, May 12, 2008

Why Upgrade to Vista?

Microsoft is beating the horse to death in the Windows XP vs. Windows Vista debate with Windows XP's Service Pack 3 (SP3) increasing the already-faster Windows XP by more than 10%. In fact, Vista is now 2x as slow as XP (according to this test). Of course, there are so many variables that could be influecing this test, but the PR message certainly looks bad.
Link: Windows XP SP3 Performance Graph

So What Does This Mean?
Luckily for Microsoft, you can't buy a new PC without Vista, reinforcing their near monopoly on the Operating System (OS) market. Without a high level of reinforcement and with their current lack of customer loyalty, it appears that Microsoft would be losing market share if there was a serious OS competitor. Although this is against Apple's ideology of controlling everything in-house, if they released OSX to run on non-Apple computers it would be a prime time to start grabbing marketshare from Windows Vista.

What Else Does This Mean?
One way in which the SP3 of Vista could be a boon is in the very small PC market, such as the Asus Eee PC, where any speed advantage would be helpful. Microsoft doesn't want to have another OS be popular for consumers in any way, if they can help it. They don't want people to have a mental "break" with Windows and start finding other OSes acceptable, and the Eee PC is no exception.