Innovative Computing Input Interfaces Will be as Important this Decade as Ubiquitous Connectivity was Last

I have seen a few essays by others reflecting on important events and themes of the past decade and predictions for the upcoming decade. I have been mulling over a few broader themes recently as well, so I am going to through some ideas into the mix, specifically focusing on technology.

Probably the most significant change in how I experience technology in 2010 as opposed to how I experienced it in 2000 is a now ubiquitous connectedness. Ten years ago, “connecting” to the web was still a significant action for me–I was still dialing in using a slow modem, which made the cost of experiencing the web annoyingly high in terms of wait time. Hence, both my web consumption and production behaviors were far less than they are now. I was not lacking in media to consume, however–film, video games, literature, and other forms of print media provided more media consumption opportunities than I had time for.

Today, disconnecting is a far more significant action than connecting–being connected is the norm, disconnecting the exception (treat?). And though nearly all of my media consumption occurs through a computer of some sort (blog posts, online news, Kindle reader app, audio books), it is in total perhaps less than my total consumption in terms of hours spent than it was 10 years ago.

What has dramatically increased is my production output–because I am constantly connected, I blog, tweet, share photos and links, collaborate on documents, write consumer software, and publish some sort of content myself every day. The amount of data I produce through explicit publication or implicit interaction with the web is growing exponentially, because publishing this data brings me value in terms of knowledge (feedback from others) or social credit (reward for sharing knowledge).

All of this data emanates, however, from devices not unlike those I used 10 years ago. 90% of my output is still generated using a physical keyboard, a bunch of it comes from mouse clicks, and now some of it comes from my mobile (Blackberry) keyboard and camera.

Over the next decade, I expect to see another massive shift in personal data output, much like the one I experienced over the past decade due to increased connectedness. This next jump in data output will come from new interfaces that capture physical world data about me and make it useful by aggregating it, showing me trends, or by comparing it to similar data gathered by others.

For a long time now we have been waiting for a refrigerator that tells us when we need to buy milk. While I still have not noticed these in many homes I have been in, I have started to see some innovative new input devices that feel much closer to the smart fridge than the keyboard and mouse.

Withings Scale – probably my favorite innovative input device. I love the simplicity: you do not have to even install software on your laptop to make this thing work. You simply connect it with a USB cable, tell it your wifi network name and password, and then it talks to a server. You weigh yourself as you would on a traditional scale, and get highly actionable/inspiring charts produced automatically on the withings website that show your weight over time. The most important thing withings got right: I do not have to change my behavior at all to make this work. Brilliant! Wish I had thought of this.

iPhone – yes, we’ve had smart phones for a long time, but iPhone has finally brought mobile computing in the US out of the stone ages. The touch screen interface is innovative, but feels closer to keyboard/mouse than smart fridge. More significant, I think, are things like being a camera that is constantly connected to the web. The iPhone quickly became the most popular camera used to take photos and upload them to flickr.com. That is profound.

Numenta & Google Goggles – although these are more software than input devices, both employ pattern recognition in a way that allows them to make sets of images (or video or audio) searchable given another image or audio/video snippet as input. Since this is quite a departure from traditional text input search queries, and a departure that makes a lot more sense now that connected cameras are pervasive in this country, I expect we’ll soon see a lot more apps that take rich media queries as input.

Augmented Reality, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Surface, Apple Tablet, GPS, and Fitbit are several other interesting new/emerging computing devices departing from the keyboard mouse/paradigm that are available or nearly available, but not as pervasive as they soon probably will be.

Ideally, all of these devices will begin talking directly with one another. But, perhaps the easier first step, is that they will all talk to the web, and open web APIs will enable interaction between the data gathered by each device. Withings is sort of setup like this: I use my scale, it records data to a server, and I can view the data either through a web browser or iPhone app. I can also use my iPhone to control iTunes on my computer, and I want to be able to use my phone/mobile device as a universal remote for every other device in my house. I want to turn off the heat if I forgot to do so before I left, boil water for tea before I get home on a cold night. I want a Mint.com for utilities, so I can compare my water and electric usage to that of others, find out where I can save resources. I also want a Mint.com of food, something that tracks every macro and micro nutrient I intake, and that uses that data to produce actionable reports or warnings.

Really, what is important, is not any one device itself. What will be the real driver of change is getting into the habit of using new devices (or old devices newly connected) with the full recognition of the power of these tools to interact with all of the data on the web. Remember how we used to have to plan physical meetups at an exact location and just wait at that place in hopes that all went according to plan before cell phones unchained us from the strict geo and temporal parameters previously required to meet in person? What other behaviors are going to be quickly forgotten when we realize that every one of our phones is a powerful computer with the ability to broadcast geo-coordinates, photos, audio, and video? What changes when we no longer need on-location devices like ATMs to interact with banking infrastructure or parking meters and metro cards to access the public transportation and utilities? Isn’t it a bit archaic to that we print our drivers licenses on paper/plastic? Shouldn’t your car or shoes or purse or backpack be much smarter and responsive to your environment? What if you carried around a smart cup that analyzed all you drank and collected nutritional data? Pair that with a smart fork, and you have a pretty complete, yet non-behavior-changing technology.

Let’s make some magic this decade!

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