SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 08 2016, @03:24PM
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.
Wait until he figures out that we are still using wheels and fire!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by calzone on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:12PM
And we're still using (modern equivalents to) stone tablets with hieroglyphics (pen and paper).
Fact is: TEXT matters. It is an encapsulation of language that humans have NO OTHER WAY TO ACHIEVE.
Even if all the wonderful amazing most outlandish concepts about facial tracking and mind reading came true, that would not get rid of the need to program those whiz-bang interfaces in the first place… using what? A keyboard. You sure as hell aren't going to dictate code.
And while consumer level devices become less keyboard dependent, consumers do, from time to time, like having the freedom to achieve the same type of powerful under the hood tasks as experts do. That's why car parts stores do such good business even though cars have become largely maintenance free.
Let's not forget that in the business world, DATA matters. You need names and numbers. You need integrity of these facts. You need to locate unique records. You have to have some type of character system to manage data. It can be alphanumeric or something more pictographic... either way, you need at least dozens of discrete shapes that can be combined in certain ways to represent language and abstract thought. And after thousands of years of evolution, guess what:
The keyboard is the fastest way to translate your thoughts into those shapes humans have yet invented. But pen and paper still works too. The keyboard just has the advantage of being faster than long hand AND being able to digitize your characters into characters COMPUTERS use. Binary.
So unless MS invents some other way, that's faster and more accurate, of manipulating (at the very least) 26 letters, 10 digits, and another 2-3 dozen utility characters that's not a keyboard, they are not replacing keyboards.
End of story.
Time to leave Soylent News [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by calzone on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:16PM
Forgot to mention: how often do people choose to write letters (email/messages) over talking face to face for certain matters?
Do politicians give speeches off the top of their heads or write them first?
Do novelists go into a recording studio and dictate an entire novel or write them?
There's a reason:
Composition helps you figure out what you mean to say and gives you the chance to edit it until you've managed to say it correctly.
Time to leave Soylent News [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by calzone on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:19PM
One last thing.
Had computers been introduced to the public as a way to talk to your toaster, they would have been relegated to the Sharper Image catalog.
But what made them must-have for regular people was DESKTOP PUBLISHING.
Time to leave Soylent News [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fubari on Saturday October 08 2016, @07:14PM
To be fair, it was a super shallow article. For most computer users, the interface won't be a keyboard. Typing doesn't matter so much when consuming content. Voice recognition is going to be "good enough" for sending text messages and posting on facebook... that is an obvious trend.
As a percentage of computer users, fewer and fewer people will be involved in creating content.
Typing will more and more be a specialist skill (technical users, science and so on). Twenty years ago, you couldn't use a computer without a keyboard.
The less obvious trend is the longer erosion of written language, we'll be evolving (de-evolving?) to emojii like hieroglyphics and voice for the majority of people. Specialists will still need to read, but I'll be shocked if people have > 50% literacy in 100 years.
In a world with self driving cars and good voice recognition why would the average person need to read?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 08 2016, @07:56PM
As a percentage of computer users, fewer and fewer people will be involved in creating content.
Depends on what you count as content. I see plenty of people using their phones to take pictures ;).
As for voice recognition, you think teenagers are going to use voice recognition for texting during family dinners to their BFFs that their parents are so annoying... Or employees are going to use it for sending messages or tweeting etc while in boring meetings?
Voice recognition is overrated. Thought pattern recognition on the other hand would be a real advance. May not be as precise as typing at first, but could be good enough for simple commands - thought macros etc. If the technology improves, the patterns might be unique enough for quick storage and recall, and for a more seamless virtual telepathy and telekinesis.
(Score: 2) by calzone on Saturday October 08 2016, @08:26PM
I had a similar thought. We may be seeing the beginning of a new class-based society where content creators run the wold, are well off, literate and use keyboards and other "professional" tools while the consumer class spends all its money on content and service subscriptions (like self driving cars), doesn't read or write much, interacts with technology entire via voice, gesture, and advanced pattern recognition / ai, consumes everything as audio, video, or VR, can't spell, never uses keyboards, donesn't know much about using a map or geography… most everything is automated for them.
To be a sustainable arrangement, such a society would need to ensure this underclass was happy enough to stay that way. There would be no poverty maybe, but there would be a major stratification between the "working class" and the "elites".
Time to leave Soylent News [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Monday October 10 2016, @03:38PM
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:54AM
In a world with self driving cars and good voice recognition why would the average person need to read?
Add to that the coming (one way or another) future of the universal basic income and optional (actually, unavailable) work, and you will discover that the speech - which was evolving, until now, to convey complex thoughts - will devolve into grunts and moans. If there is no information to exchange, the speech will die out, along with the intelligence. One does not need many words to lumber between a food trough and a bed. Of course, not all will fall into that trap, but many will - the future society will not be employing anyone with the IQ below some large number, they would be useless. This is becoming true already.