Throw Out Your Keyboard & Mouse

I have a request to any hardware developers out there who would like to develop the most practical futuristic input device possible today.  If you heard of multi-touch input done on a small scale then you are getting close to what the device looks like.

The device I speak of is 16x9 in format and is no thicker than a few inches.  It has a height adjustable stand with the ability to pivot.  The device has a low center of gravity and is not likely to tip over with repeat use.

Now that I have described the foundation of this device I want to get into the fun bits.  What I envision is a screen with multi-touch built in.  It is about the size of a standard keyboard plus a bit of extra room.  With a touch the keyboard overlay comes on the screen so I can type.

I hit another button and the overlay goes away.  Underneath is what I see on my screen except the windows are just outlines of what I see on my wide-screen monitor.  The background is customizable either with colors or a photo.  If I move a window on my device it will move accordingly on my monitor.

I can resize, move and otherwise manipulate the windows on my monitor via finger movements.   I can zoom in on my screen to get more detail and do quicksilver-like movements to perform certain actions.  Now this is certainly a great step forward to getting rid of the traditional RSI causing mouse and keyboard.

The next step is a smart OS that can predict my next action.  If I just moved 3 files to a folder, then allow me a quick way to move the next 5 to that same folder.  If I am looking at a window, then let me move that window instead of moving a cursor all the way to that side of the screen.

First, I need my multi-touch sensory input device.  I would like different sizes depending on my workspace and while I would expect it to be plugged into AC, please let there be bluetooth.  My 10-key overlay should be available as well the correct keyboard layout if I want to type dvorak....which I do.

Any comments on the perfect input device?

The Incremental Web

After spending the last 20 minutes dealing with a certain popular website editing program, rhymes with DreenBeaver, I got to thinking. First a bit of background. Anytime you visit a website your browser downloads a copy of every page you look at. This is commonly known as caching.

The reason your browser caches any visited website is on the off chance you visit it again, it already has the information. If you do visit the page again, your browser will check to see if the page has expired. If it has not, then it will display the cached version instead of downloading a fresh copy.

Now since a large majority of the web is text, this works pretty well. I say pretty well because there is one technology missing that would really make life better especially in lower bandwidth situations. Incremental updates.

What I proposal in the caching process is instead of the browser downloading everything again, only download the pieces that have changed. It's a novel concept I know and some may argue it may not do much good....well until you think about it.

The amount of data downloaded that does not change could potentially be tremendous. If a designer adds a few lines of code to either a page, or a stylesheet, or any combination of the above then imagine the bandwidth savings.

If your browser understands incremental text changes then we are off to a good start. The next step is incremental binary. Images, Video, Podcasts, any of these could benefit from changing the way data is presented. Impossible you say? Dropbox has found a way to handle it.

Think it would do any good?