Think-And-Click Computing
I realize I’m way ahead of myself before I’ve even begun (take that sentence as a case-in-point). However, I’ve been thinking about where to go after “the mouse”. I’ve always felt that the death of the mouse will come with the birth of what I call “think-clicking”. Instead of moving your mouse around the screen, the pointer and cursor will be gone. Instead you will look at the screen and think about what you want to do.
A simple example would be: think about opening a program, it opens. Think about creating a new document within that program, and it prompts you with some specifications about your new document. You think about how you want to move through the prompts and they disappear.
In my mind, I can imagine how this type of “think-clicking” will work. It won’t necessarily be word-association, but more likely it will be a boolean. I’ve read that the sensation of thinking TRUE or FALSE is the easiest “thought” to evaluate. Yes or no. Black or White. 1 or 0. So, prompted with “Would you like to continue?”, the responses would be easy to differentiate.
Obviously this type of computing would immensely increase our workflow with day-to-day tasks. No more “finding the spot” with your mouse. Instead instantly thinking your way through prompts and windows. Anticipating the windows that will come up next and moving through them before they even appear. I can’t wait!
What has recently occurred to me, and promptly scared me, was the thought of how Malware could take advantage of this. Imagine being able to write a program that does the *opposite* of what you want; and does it before you are even aware you made that mistake? Grandparents around the world are easily fooled nowadays by evil websites and trojans and malware. Imagine if they could even fool the most tech-savvy of us?
Obviously the eggheads who are coming up with this stuff in a lab somewhere have already anticipated this, and they’re laughing at my short-sighted ignorance. But hey, I’m just thinking out loud.
This kind of reminds me of something I saw recently. Where someone used a nerve-tapping neckband to speak without actually speaking.
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13449
Mark, you can come with some pretty wacky stuff but ya know, it’s because of all the wacky stuff you dream up that you eventually arrive at an awesome and innovative idea that is completely new and unheard of or just something that puts a completely new slant on something that has already been done.
But honestly, think-clicking? Instead of just thinking about creating a document and then typing it out, why not just think up the entire document in first place? Or is it that I’M the crazy one here?
I think there are too many variables to be able to just dream up the document and have it appear in it’s entirety. There still needs to be a number of questions answered before it can appear, and then you have to fill it with your thoughts. I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong.