robertj@uunet.UU.NET (Young Rob Jellinghaus) (05/08/91)
In article <1991May7.204509.27452@beaver.cs.washington.edu> chou@steelhead.cs.wa shington.edu (Pai Hsiang Chou) writes: >The reason I think several notebooks will be more usable than one >notebook with windows is simple: you can never have enough screen space >(or I should say, "I can always use more screen space"). >But there is a limit to how big a screen size can be before it gets too >big to carry. So the solution is to carry several screens. > >Everything is getting more and more computing power. So a screen in the >future is probably not just a screen any more, but it may have even more >computing power than the most powerful personal computer we know today, >but it may be very cheap. It will probably have handwriting recognition >and application programs built in to it. There may or may not be >a central processing unit. And we will probably not think of them as >a "computer", but probably more like a smart display device. To hell with the screens. The most usable sort of display system for me, at least, would be a cyberspace-based one. What could such a future system do? Slip on a glove and a pair of glasses, with the computer on your belt. Assume the glasses are translucent, so you can still see, but the computer generates images which overlay the real world. A white table could have black text superimposed on it. You could be lying on your back in the grass, manipulating 3-D models floating in the space above your body. No need for any clipboard at all. Suddenly you have all the screen space in the world! Point to select. If you want, pick up a pen and draw on any flat surface; the computer could superimpose your screen on the surface and detect your pen position from the position of your hand. If you like a keyboard, use one. You would just need the keyboard; if the belt pack's good enough, the keys could just be dummy keys, with no associated switches--the glove detects your typing. You could have whole vistas of cyberspace through which you could move just by pointing, or by grabbing hold of something and pulling it towards you. If you want, you could have an "anchor" unit which you could position and radio-link to your belt unit; now as you walk around the objects stand still, so you could walk around a model and examine it from all angles. If you get confused between the real world and the superimposed images, just clip some black sunshades on the front of your glasses. Bingo, you're just seeing the cyberspace. The real problem with all this, of course, is the glasses. They're a pain. Any cyberspace interface that's based on this "superimposed- images" model will need them, though, unless we can come up with video contact lenses.... >Why, it might even have a built-in voice recognition chip, and you >can dictate into it, walk around, then click a button on the pen >to paste your words into your document. Right. The cyberspace interface would go even better with voice recog. Point to the image of a person and start talking; your words get saved as electronic mail and linked to the person's inbox. Etcetera ad infinitum. >I am definitely not thinking in terms of DOS or Macintosh with a >much faster processor in a smaller box. Nor am I. It'll be fun, won't it? And the super cyberspace system I describe above is almsot certainly no more than twenty years away.... (boy, predictions are easy to make! Anyone have a different opinion?) >Pai Chou >chou@june.cs.washington.edu -- Rob Jellinghaus | "Next time you see a lie being spread or Autodesk, Inc. | a bad decision being made out of sheer robertj@Autodesk.COM | ignorance, pause, and think of hypertext." {decwrl,uunet}!autodesk!robertj | -- K. Eric Drexler, _Engines of Creation_