🚀 go-pugleaf

Josh Hall predicted that:

> The keyboard will go the way of the card reader.  Voice-and-pointer
> will be standard; the pointer may be a dataglove or merely a camera
> pointed at your hand.  You have to have something to do with that
> 100 mips, after all.

I just have to respond to this.  WRONG.  Think what it would be like
on an airplane with everyone muttering to their pocket computer.
Think what office cubicles would be like.  Try editing a program over
the phone (I've done it).

o Voice I/O will be useful only where keyboards and screens are not.
  Voice will be used by children and other illiterates, and where both
  hands are needed for something else, as when operating a vehicle or
  other machinery.

o Voice mail will largely be replaced by text-oriented email, not the
  other way around.  

o Pocket computers will generally use handwriting recognition on their
  touch-sensitive screens, rather than voice inputs.

o Full-sized keyboards will be a ubiquitous accessory.  People will
  try to "type" using datagloves, but the lack of tactile feedback
  will make this unsatisfactory in most cases.  Deaf people fluent in
  sign language will have an advantage in cyberspace.

Here are a few more random predictions:

o Pocket computers will have a full-sized, touch-sensitive screen.
  They will approximate a smart pad of paper, at which point almost
  everyone who now carries a notebook around will want one.

o The standard lap/desk-top computer will be 8.5x11x.5 inches.  The
  display will go all the way to the edge, so larger displays can be
  built up by tiling.

o Pocket computers + _partially_transparent_ eyephones + locators +
  cellular networks will permit cyberspace to be overlaid on the real
  world.  This will permit virtual nametags (title bars for people),
  virtual costumes, virtual street signs, and the like.

o High-quality multi-media or hypermedia documents will prove to be as
  expensive to produce as movies or grand operas.  Only a few will be
  produced before interactive virtual realities make them obsolete.

o Virtual realities will become a major form of entertainment.

o There will never be a standard representation for hypertext
  documents.  Instead, there will be a standardized library of
  _access_routines_ that permit _anything_ to be viewed as a
  collection of object-attribute associations.

o Books stored in centralized repositories (e.g. Library of Congress)
  will be downloaded once and cached locally by each user, so as to
  avoid repeat access fees and to take advantage of bulk data rates.

o The copyright laws will be overhauled, probably more than once.

o Attempts will be made to license and/or certify programmers and/or
  software.  At least one will probably succeed.  Entertainment
  software will remain unregulated, with the result that CAD packages,
  word processors, spreadsheets, and the like will end up being
  packaged as games.

o Attempts will be made to prevent the development of artificial
  intelligences.  Opponents will be in the amusing position of trying
  to legislate against something they claim is impossible in the first
  place. 

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