Touching The Future

By Mohamed Al Jneibi (@maljunaibi)

It is no secret that much of the buzz and news going around, in the world of electronics, has to be in the form of touch/tablet devices. These devices are boasting more than the regular features of simply individuals’ interacting with each other, they now interface with the accurate reactions of the human touch.

Capacitive screens or popularly known as touchscreens have been in the industry for quite sometime, as far back as the early 70’s when the touchscreen device was more of a prototype than anything else. With the development of resistive touchscreens first, the technology became part and parcel of various areas of industry, be it in sales, optical research and even the music industry. Scientists have always envisioned a world where systems, and services could all be managed with the command of the ordinary human hand. It started first with the aid of the stylus (that funky looking pen that always accompanied your PDA, or the first generation smart phone). This was the era of the resistive touchscreens, but we were still not there yet.

Then came the capacitive and infrared-based touchscreens, and the various operating systems that began to support the first “truly human” interface with the computer or device. Then came the iPhone, and a lot of things happened afterwards. The growing number of tablet devices is rapidly increasing; many manufacturers are now finding this technology an easy win within the consumer electronics market. Children will be able to start their first stints on to the computerized world with the touch of a screen. The attachment that the next generation will have towards their PCs or computer devices will inadvertently have some effect to their overall growing process.

Children could find the more traditional and primitive forms of interface with a computer a very tedious task. After all, would you not find it strange that we have to navigate with at least 2 devices to our computers? The mouse, and keyboard concept, is surely going to become a thing of the past, when more advanced touchscreens become common within the daily lifestyles of everyone.

This sort of opportunity will surely help bridge the gap between the more computer literate amongst us with those who may feel slightly intimidated in performing the various tasks that are now somehow computerized. If you look at it in hindsight, virtually most of your typical governmental processes are now computerized or at least automated (to a certain degree). This would probably be due to the many system analysts who have not only mapped the overall business processes, but who have also enabled the business into doing more (with less) at the work place.

The world is now starting to “touch” more of what is to being developed in the upcoming years. Our perceptions and views on how to better work with systems are already being revolutionized in front of our very own eyes. The dilemma is, what is next? What happens next? It would only be a matter of time before computing systems interfacing with cognitive or thought-based decisions become a reality.

This would mean that we would be able to “think” a command to the system, whereby based on whatever the criteria that is sent, a response or output would then be made available. This fresh and very early form of computing is slowly making some ground. The human brain is filled with charges and sensations due to the uniqueness of the brains own matter. Through establishing a medium, and by properly translating the various electrical impulses of the brain, we are in fact making the computer correctly input and process the data coming from its source (which would be the human brain in this case).

Much of this might still be sometime away, but we can also wonder the amount of advancement made at the turn of the 20^th century. It would have sounded quite odd, speaking to a group of people in the 1980’s, that one day we would be able to record people’s everyday interactions at work, and at the same time upload the video from their homes. This in turn would mean that someone else (half way around the world) would be able to watch this via web browser, and watch the same video over and over again. YouTube anyone?

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