Considering that we often rely on our five basic senses to be aware and interact with the world around us, it comes as to no surprise that the forms of user interfaces always requires a certain degree of mechanical touch for input and a visual display for output. We do have voice activated commands and our devices also generate sounds as a way of giving us feedback, but aside from these, we do not employ the rest of our sense for interfacing with electronics.
It would also be silly to think that scents and flavors would ever be transmitted online –which is also another reason why we do not think of using our noses and our tongues to use smart phones, computers and others.
Anyway, it all basically boils down to touch and visuals. With touch, we could be manipulating an interface control such as tapping keys on a keyboard, dragging a mouse across the table or even by swinging around a motion control stick or tilting around your iPhone to play games. The concept has been spread to other forms of touch technology. Touch screen displays and touch sensitive overlays are being developed to become thinner and more flexible; allowing the conversion of basic day to day items like tabletops and windows to be turned into interface devices.
Some are looking into developing user interface that detect eye movement. While this technology sounds impressive, in actual use, it might get annoying. Imaging having to look away from your monitor because you were distracted by a sound, this could cause a whatever task you are doing to be interrupted and may even cause unwanted results (such as accidentally tossing import files into the trash bin instead of a file folder).
Find out more about future technologies for user interfaces at Pocket Lint.
