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From: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: One Step... (part 2)
Message-ID: <eZFm4#2QXrzQ=eric@snark.UUCP>
Date: 30 Dec 88 03:25:34 GMT
References: <264@gloom.uucp>
Sender: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond)
Organization: Erisian Liberation Front
Lines: 25

In article <264@gloom.uucp>, cory@gloom.UUCP (Cory Kempf) writes:
> The other article that I wrote gave a nice discription of how I
> envision the next generation of userinterfaces to work.

Neat description, but I spot a major problem. With no tactile feedback on
the phantom keyboards, how are ya gonna type? Are you assuming something
like a dataglove that can generate pressure on the hand to simulate touch of
the virtual objects? If so, realize that that is a *very* hard problem just
from the mechanical-effector point of view.

Better we should be working on neural-interface devices, not for the sensory
side (that's a very very hard problem) but for the motor-affector side (which
is a relatively easy one). Screw keyboards; it's already known that you can
quickly biofeedback-train people to spark hair-thin electrodes attached to
individual muscle fibers in the balls of their thumbs. *This* is the interface
technology we should be investigating, looking for a non-intrusive version.

Perhaps the gurus of tomorrow will sit lotus-fashion in the midst of multi-
sensory samsaras of the kind you described, controlling everything through a
discreet little cable with a myolectric sensor box on one end, placed next
to the skin.
-- 
      Eric S. Raymond                     (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
      Email: eric@snark.uu.net                       CompuServe: [72037,2306]
      Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355      Phone: (215)-296-5718