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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Microsoft's man in charge of predicting the future has forecast the slow death of the Qwerty keyboard — with facial tracking, voice and gesture recognition taking over. Dave Coplin, the technology giant's chief envisioning officer, said it was bizarre that 21st-century workers still relied on typing technology invented in the 19th century. He added that while there have been huge leaps in technology, often the workplace had not caught up.
"We have these amazing computers that we essentially use like we're still Victorians. The Qwerty keyboard is a great example of an old design being brought forward to modern day. We've not really evolved. We still use this sub-optimal design.
"We're looking at technologies now like voice and gesture recognition, and facial tracking that may make the keyboard redundant," he added.
"We think that computers in the not-too-distant future will be able to understand all of those things and infer on my behalf my intent, meaning and objective that I'm trying to do."
(Score: 1) by hey_popey on Sunday October 09 2016, @08:41AM
So far, every comment I've read has been missing the "face tracking" part.
If I understand correctly, Dave Coplin would simply have you type your sed line, by tracking your eyes looking at some kind of keyboard - virtual or not.
Back in 2003 I tested myself a prototype on a science fair. The thing could identify several zones (~5) on a normal sized screen and react differently depending on which one I was looking at. Granted, the mouse pointer tracking my line of sight was not very stable (maybe that's inherent to how our eyes work), but I'm sure that it can be (and might have already been) improved upon in the 13 years since, even if only in research labs.