[LeifCarrotson]

Eyeballs are pretty optimal for getting data out of a computer and into a brain. I think professionals will continue to use a high-resolution large-format desktop monitor, but a high-resolution large-format display on a pair of glasses is unambiguously superior to a phone screen, no matter how much resolution they pack in or how much larger than a pocket they get.

What I wonder is where the keyboard is going. I have an imagination that can draw and abstract things with (I think?) about as much fidelity as my eyes can take in, but there's nothing that even comes close to that for getting that data out of my brain and into the computer. Not keyboards, not mice, not touchscreens or pen/tablet, not game controllers, not voice-to-text. Not my Leap Motion gesture sensor or Spacemouse, though those are interesting products. With lots and lots of training, I can get hundreds of WPM of text into a computer, with exotic, high-information-density syntax if required (text entry speed doesn't really seem to be the bottleneck for productive work, but that's beside the point IMO).

The optimal input mechanism is definitely not blinking, though I can imagine that eyeglasses with gaze tracking tech (and some training for "wink to click" or similar) may someday be of comparable or greater utility to a mouse pointer. But how close can we get to "think to text" or "think to image"?

[valine]

I’ve been imagining the future will be smart glasses paired with mini pocket keyboards, like the bottom half of a blackberry. Or who knows maybe everyone will lean heavily into dictation.

I think there’s also a future where hand tracking gets so good you just type on a full sized floating keyboard. That’s seems to be apples approach with the Vision Pro.

[arp242]

> Or who knows maybe everyone will lean heavily into dictation.

Impractical, as lots of input is hard or even impossible to do with dictation; saying "next" or "go back" every time quickly becomes tiresome, and never mind things like games.

For pure text messages and the like there are loads of scenarios where you don't want to be talking out loud, for reasons of convenience, privacy, and not being a nuisance to others.

It's looks cool on Star Trek and all, but voice control will never be the main interface to computers. Absolutely great accessibility tool and like many accessibility tools useful for everyone from time to time. But the default for regular people? I'm not seeing that happening.

[DoctorOetker]

our ears can speak.

the inner ear is a mechanical amplifier.

a device comparing the incoming acoustic spectrum with the otoacoustically emitted spectrum can see the mixer settings (controlled by the brain).

we could learn to type and communicate with our cochleas (assuming they weren't destroyed by wearing big headphones while cycling...)