This looks great, but I'm a bit worried that this will only bring more people RSI or similar problems.
I think that the future of input devices are our brains and a device that can read what's going on in them and translate that to the computer. We really need to move away from devices that use hands because they simply aren't made for such tasks. The only way I see humans still using hands for computer interaction in the future is if we get prosthetic robot hands like in the Deus Ex game for example.
> The only way I see humans still using hands for computer interaction in the future is if we get prosthetic robot hands like in the Deus Ex game for example.
If we could access the brain outputs that control the hands, why would we make robot hands and special input devices to be controlled by those hands to control the computers, rather than interface to the computers directly?
Perhaps you won't want third party hardware or software interfacing with your brain.
Another issue could be that repeating simplistic patterns over and over with your brain could generate a kind of "brain RSI" and you'd prefer the old school way to do things.
I find it infinitely entertaining to think about all the practical things you'll care about when a dream technology actually becomes available.
Well both use cases could be made in parallel. You could have prosthetic hands to replace your lost ones (or to "upgrade" your existing ones) and have a direct link to the computer.
Could be. But it also could be that we would be able to tap into nerves and make artificial hands sooner than a usable interface between the brains and computer (there is a whole set of other problems to solve here). And that would mean that the interface for the computer would stay the same (keyboard, mouse, touch screen, ...) but our hands would be mechanical (and you couldn't get Carpal Tunnel Syndrom since, well, you wouldn't have a carpal tunnel :))
What are the other problems? Making a prosthetic arm is a superset of getting inputs from nerves, since you need to do that to make the actual arm. Besides, Microsoft already did that, as this very post indicates.
Well for starters you would have to read the signals from the brain, otherwise you are limited to the nerves in your hands. Maybe I wasn't clear enough about what I mean. I was thinking along the lines of thought control, not that you would control a virtual hand, if you will, on the computer. And if you wanted that you would, like I said, have to capture brain activity and develop software that would be able to make sense of your thoughts and translate those thoughts into actions on the computer ... this, to me, is a whole different game.
Well, it's much, much more complicated to decode the brain's internals than just read its outputs to hands and other peripherals. I'm not sure it won't happen, but it's that much more complicated that it wouldn't surprise me.
I think that the future of input devices are our brains and a device that can read what's going on in them
A major obstacle to developing a useful brain-computer interface using EEG is signal strength. The event-related potentials measured at the scalp are microvolts and do not play well with other electronics nearby. Direct measurement of the motor cortex solves this problem, but most people aren't eager for brain surgery. The other option is to move downstream to the muscle site where a clean signal is quite accessible. I agree, however, that this is a less than ideal solution.
I think this is just something that future advancements in technology will make possible and practical. So I'm not to worried about this problems that you listed :)
I think that the future of input devices are our brains and a device that can read what's going on in them and translate that to the computer. We really need to move away from devices that use hands because they simply aren't made for such tasks. The only way I see humans still using hands for computer interaction in the future is if we get prosthetic robot hands like in the Deus Ex game for example.