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posted by janrinok on Saturday October 08 2016, @02:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the orly? dept.

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."

Source: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/techandgadgets/microsoft-expert-who-predicts-future-technology-says-qwerty-keyboard-will-die-out-a3355726.html


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Saturday October 08 2016, @04:03PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Saturday October 08 2016, @04:03PM (#411770)

    the problem is , the keyboard as awful as it may be , is still the highest bandwidth mechanism for getting information from my brain to the outside world - speaking might be faster, but I doubt it is more precise.

    Imagine trying to use dictated Latex....!!!

    That said, maybe when AR becomes a real thing, perhaps really precise eye tracking might allow "synced" environments , where you can change the context of the computer by looking elsewhere.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Francis on Saturday October 08 2016, @04:17PM

    by Francis (5544) on Saturday October 08 2016, @04:17PM (#411773)

    When I read the headline, I thought he was predicting that Dvorak or some other arrangement of keys was the way of the future, but nope, he's predicting that we'll move away from keyboards in general.

    Which as you noted is rather ridiculous. A mouse only has 5 points that you can reliably hit without looking, the four corners of the screen, plus whatever the mouse is hovering over. That's it. A typical keyboard has over a hundred keys and if you add meta keys, that gives you a rather large number of possible things you can press without looking. And predictive keyboards are really, really bad. Especially if you're wanting to curse or are prone to using technical language.

    Voice based input has been around for quite a while, but it remains inconvenient and the accuracy rate isn't yet good enough. I'm not sure what it is currently, but it's probably hovering around 98-9% right now. But, only if you speak with a consistent accent.

    I don't expect that the keyboard will go away until such a time as we start using brain scans as an interface and I find that possibility to be incredibly scary.

    • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday October 08 2016, @04:33PM

      by opinionated_science (4031) on Saturday October 08 2016, @04:33PM (#411781)

      well I had one of those "touchstream" (name?) with the mouse/keyboard combination - fantastic for avoiding CT

      Of course, Apple bought them up took the keyboard off the market, and instead released the magic mouse/trackpad(?)

      I bought 2 of them immediately - they are bluetooth, run under linux using synaptics, and if you are adventurous you can use 2 to replace touchstream by gluing on labels.

      still the trackpad is preferable to a mouse, since it allows one handed browsing etc...

      my magic combo I recommend is using mousekeys right hand and mouse left hand - spread the load ;-)

      • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:08PM

        by Francis (5544) on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:08PM (#411801)

        I used to have a Thinkpad and I wish those little joystick buttons would become more popular. It's really handy once you get used to it, and I pretty much immediately disabled the trackpad as it has the typical problem of reacting to the wrist and heels of the hands.

        • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:54PM

          by opinionated_science (4031) on Saturday October 08 2016, @06:54PM (#411818)

          the apple "magic mouse" (or whatever marketing calls it) doesn't do that - I am pretty sure they stopped selling them for being too useful...

          But seriously, the keyless pad stops carpal injury by drastically reducing the force required to strike a key.

          I've used those thinkpad's and the nipple is not a bad idea - i think the palm/wrist problem has been solved by synaptics this mouse has none of it.

          • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday October 08 2016, @10:07PM

            by Francis (5544) on Saturday October 08 2016, @10:07PM (#411845)

            They may have fixed it, but I haven't had a laptop in quite a while. The only fix I've seen that actually works is disabling it automatically whenever there's a mouse plugged in the way that Apple does.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ShadowSystems on Saturday October 08 2016, @08:46PM

    by ShadowSystems (6185) <ShadowSystemsNO@SPAMGmail.com> on Saturday October 08 2016, @08:46PM (#411835)

    Eye tracking won't do a damn bit of good for anyone with visual issues such as low vision, blindness, or tunnel vision. If we can't see the screen then tracking our eyes for anything is utterly pointless if not counter productive.
    Gesture tracking is just as useless to the blind since we can't see to know if the gesture we've made is done correctly or if the computer has interpreted it properly; it's also why a blind person using a mouse is pointless since we can't SEE to AIM it. You get someone with arthritis, Parkinson's, or any other muscular tremor issues & gesture tracking is as useful as a bicycle to a fish.
    A keyboard can be used by the blind (I'm using one now), the low vision folks, folks with muscle issues (even one finger typing is still better than eye tracking that may not be possible or gesture tracking wich may be nearly so), & isn't as frustrating to correct mistakes as voice recognition currently stands. Having to shout at your computer to be heard, train it to understand your voice, & then issue-correct-reissue-recorrect commands as your computer thinks "Stop that" meant "Chop cat", "Hop chat", "Flop shat" or some other homophome... Even single finger typing or using a mouth stick to press single keys at a time is infinitely less of a PITA.
    Keyboards aren't going away any time soon, no matter how much some deranged MS mental aeomeba may want it.

  • (Score: 2) by Refugee from beyond on Sunday October 09 2016, @12:07AM

    by Refugee from beyond (2699) on Sunday October 09 2016, @12:07AM (#411868)

    You won’t be speaking fast or at all pretty soon if you control your PC exclusively with voice. And that’s before you try programming with that. There will be blood.

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