Wednesday, April 5, 2017

As Ever, Mobile Devices Bring Science No-one Needs - Science

The latest science from the world of mobile devices is we will be able to control them with hand gestures in the future.  There are few things which better demonstrate the failure of any rational interface to computers than the attempt to use the sign language of the deaf to communicate with them.  (Science Daily:  In the future, we will control our mobiles using gestures)

Welcome to today's edition of Science No-one Requested and No-one Needs.


Being able to interact with mobile phones and other smart devices using gestures with our hands and fingers in three dimensions would make the digital world more like the real one. A new project at Linnaeus University will help develop this next-generation interface.

Width, height, depth -- the world is three-dimensional. So why are almost all interactions with mobile devices based on two dimensions only?

- SD

Here's your short answer, Dagwood; it's because most of us don't know sign language for the deaf and we don't want to know it.  Any questions or should I submit them via Morse code?


Here's the shocker which will surprise you in no way whatsoever; our li'l researchers are hustling something.

Sure, touchscreens have made it a lot easier to interact, but as new devices such as smart watches and virtual reality glasses turn up, we will not be content with two dimensions. We want to be able to interact in 3D with the help of the hands in front of and around our digital devices. This is where the new project Real-Time 3D Gesture Analysis for Natural Interaction with Smart Devices comes in, a project that will bring the next big development in interface technology.

- SD

Touchscreens are useless except the simplest types of engagements with computer and they just give us a visual version of the audio dialogs we get from computers when we call help lines, etc.  This is probably the slowest and most irritating way to exchange information.


The problem isn't that touchscreens or hand gestures are so good but rather we hate typing so much.  Through many years of practice, I'm a fast and highly-proficient typist ... but I still hate it.

Note:  that was the only useful thing which came out of the Army insofar as it improved my typing speed through required practice.


While typing is an annoying way to engage with a computer, it still presents the mechanism for the most complex exchanges of data with humans whereas hand signals, etc go the opposite direction.


We don't need hand gestures, we need a substantive evolution in the method of engagement with electronic devices and hand gestures are likely already obsolete anyway when there is such a steadfast drive toward implanting electronics rather than extending the primitive ways they're managed now.

In judging the credibility of any science the Rockhouse reports, we will always look to see whether the researchers are trying to market anything.  If that's the case, the judgment of the credibility of the research will often drop substantially.

The Rockhouse doesn't accept anything sight unseen.

No comments: