Thanks to Christophe-Marie, who sent me a link of a very interesting video of a UI concept where the mouse is no longer relevant. Instead, multi-finger touch is used, with quite natural gestures.

Here’s the 10/GUI video by C. Miller.

Why do I like it?
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Here are two videos of absolutely cool human-computer interface systems; Jeff Han’s touchscreen, and Pattie Maes’ & Pranav Mistry’s “Sixth Sense” system.

My prediction is that in 15-25 years ubiquitous computing will be an everyday reality in the way Mark Weiser envisioned it to be – computing devices will blend into the environment and “disappear”, letting you do whatever it is you need to do without having to consciously use a computer. And then, when you see people doing their slow tai-chi like movements in the park, instead of exercising, they just might be accessing their data with the help of body-motion detecting wearable computing and reality-augmenting contact lenses.

And, perhaps, William Gibson is the next Jules Verne.

Stay tuned!

Can you imagine how the world will change, when people can truly walk around with their personal libraries with them, carrying tens if not hundreds of books, without 1. Internet access, 2. hauling a heavy laptop, 3. hauling any device where the battery dies in approximately 4 hours of usage? Reference books, technical manuals, fiction, non-fiction, comics, you name it, anything can be handily carried in your pocket, as if you were carrying a paperback book.
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Ubiquitous networks everywhere mean naturally network access everywhere. But does it also mean ubiquitous networks = ubiquitous spying? This is a very good article to read.

After consuming vast amounts of the spice melange and taking inspiration from Nostradamus, Gartner presents their view of the Top 10 Disruptive Technologies for 2008-2012. It’s an interesting list, in many ways, although I think it’s lacking some very big things.
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Processing is a framework which lets you do all kinds of extremely cool graphical wizardry and visualizations. It’s kind of hard to explain what it is, so just head over to their exhibition and see what’s it all about. It’s worth repeating that those works were created with Processing. And, for many of them you can find source code as well.
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Suppose you’re a surgeon, soon to conduct a delicate surgery on a heart patient. You hold tightly to your rusty and trusty chain saw as you climb a rope into an operating room which is located at the open roof of the hospital. It’s windy and there’s a lot of birds, but that’s the way it’s always been, so you are sort of used to it already – why change it?

Or, suppose you’re a painter, soon to paint a house. You grab some blueberries for the colour and a tiny sponge with which you will slowly wipe the house blue. It’s a bit awkward, not to mention terribly slow, and the quality is bad, but that’s the way it’s always been, so why change it? “But that’s absurd! Nobody does things in such a difficult way!”, you say. Well, suppose you’re a software developer…
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The slides for a presentation I gave at the 15th Summerschool on Telecommunications about “Principles of Ubiquitous Computing” are available here.