...with my little eye

[adelaidesean]

Niven & Barnes's Dream Park just came one step closer:

"Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights."

I'm excited, not just because of the SF angle, but for the possibilities provided by a HUD word processor and virtual keyboard. With this kind of tech, I could write anywhere!

Comments

[cheshirenoir.livejournal.com]

and virtual keyboard
I think you'd be surprised and appalled at how much tactile feedback counts in these cases. It's why the laser projection keyboards have never been more than a gimmick.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're right, but how long until we have neural interfaces that will give us a virtual tactile feedback too?

Okay, that's probably a little further off. I'll just keep on dreamin'. :-)

[cheshirenoir.livejournal.com]

You're not thinking about the problem the correct way. Virtual keyboards don't work, which is why they don't use them on organisers. It'll be the same for whatever wearable computer solution we come up with to use with the lenses.

Possible solutions:
Subvocalised voice recognition - Mutter to yourself and have it come up in the screen.
Something gesture based - Learn sign language and "type" really fast just by waving your hands around.
Buttons on the back of your hands - Make a "steeple" with both hands and each set of keys are under your fingertips on the back of the OTHER hand. Type away. (It'll probably need some sort of "chording" and it's going to be a pain to learn)

None of these need dangerously invasive surgery that will be out of date in 12 months...

By the way, did you see we have our first cyborg disqualified from the Olympics? (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/17/prosthetic-limbed-runner-disqualified-from-olympics/)

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Me, I think the Olympics should be open to all combinations of human and machine. Maybe then I'd be interested in it. :-)

You're quite right about me thinking about this the wrong way. But I don't doubt that any technology requiring us to relearn how to type is going to face an uphill battle. Even though I KNOW that Dvorak will be better for me, I still can't get myself to do it.

Subvocalised voice recognition, on the other hand, could be a winner. The only person I know who writes by speaking aloud is Kevin J Anderson, and he employs a secretary to transcribe his audio files. That makes me wonder just how good the software is at the moment, and how long it'll take for it to be good enough to handle all the neologisms we skiffy writers like so much. But that's just an engineering problem. When Kevin switches over, I'll consider following.

[nevryn.livejournal.com]

Apparently one of the better voice recognition programs is Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and that claims an at best 99% accuracy rate.

Which means it gets 1 in 100 words wrong. In optimal conditions. Which I can't see being that useful if you can actually type.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

My typing accuracy is probably not as good as that, but I can make corrections as I go so it's not such a big deal. Maybe there's a neat way to do the same in the Dragon program. If there is, I could be tempted.

Writing aloud from home, though, might risk my space opera being punctuated by calls for "Mum!" at odd moments. :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

Contacts: eww! Where's my laser-based (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_retinal_display), bridge-mounted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_piercing) micro-eyetap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EyeTap)?

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Hear hear!