[markessien]

In my opinion, it's obvious what the next big thing is going to be. Image recognition, accelerometer integration, multi-touch and so on. Basically, we're looking at the death of the mouse and keyboard a few years down the line.

It's starting now, and it's starting the same way the web started - working poorly, very fragmented, cool but not yet practical. This will change soon.

[likpok]

Given that multitouch has been around since the 80's or so (at least the technology), I don't think we're going to see the death of the keyboard. It's just too good of a method of input.

[swombat]

I don't think it's that great... Most importantly, keyboards require a flat surface to be really good. When on the move, keyboards really suck. There's plenty of room for improvement in portable input devices. Even something with a lot less expressiveness, but that, for instance, can be used with your hand in your pocket (perhaps while wearing a HUD of some sort) would be a huge improvement.

[likpok]

It depends on what you're trying to do. Most phones I've used can be operated with one hand, blindly, to do common tasks (raise/lower vol. silence call).

The biggest problem, though, is that modern portable devices /need/ the expressiveness of a keyboard. Which is why devices like the Blackberry, the sidekick, etc. took off.

The touchscreen changes some of that, but, from what I hear, it doesn't quite work as well.

[markessien]

Why do they 'need' it? If voice recognition were completely perfect, they would not need it.

[rplevy]

The power of editing and revising printed text with a keyboard is not something that can be easily duplicated using voice. Consider trying to write code in this way. It's easy to say words but faster to type when you need custom spellings and editing words at a character level. It seems awkward to have to edit text with speech (easier to type something like C-space down down C-s quote . right C-space C-k M-x end-of-buffer C-y than to say it). Maybe some combination of keyboard and voice would work. Voice is not be ideal for a workplace situation, unless it is subvocal silent speech, which it sounds like is a technology that is almost ready.

[justindz]

For an interesting take on this, see Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Many of the cyborgs and secretary-bots have expandable spider fingers that type at lightning speed. People without augmentation can still use the keyboards, so it's device and space efficient and keyboards are dirt cheap and the keys can take a lot of pounding.

[weavejester]

Which looks good on film, but in reality I rather suspect that a cyborg with a USB interface would be more efficient.

[justindz]

QWERTY is a more stable protocol. You'd have to do less rip and replace of hardware (read: body parts). You could even handle Dvorak with only a software upgrade ;-)