Technology That Could Replace the Keyboard and Mouse

Remember computer punch cards? Since computing punch cards became extinct, there has been some version of the keyboard and mouse as we know them today. These interfacing tools have become so entrenched into our minds that it is honestly difficult to imagine a computer without them. But this brings up the question: will there ever be a user interface impressionable enough to replace them?

That depends on how the interfaces under development are adopted. Below is a list of the anticipated development of new interfaces and when we may expect to see these technologies emerge.

Today

The standard keyboard and mouse are still alive and well, not yet phased out by the touch gestures that are incorporated into more and more modern devices, or the voice responsiveness that many technologies leverage via virtual assistants. Augmented and virtual reality are also becoming increasingly more mainstream, which makes it more probable that they will someday soon make a practical appearance in the office space.

Digital assistants have also been making an impact in the professional environment, making many rote operations more streamlined and efficient.

Coming Soon

The key to a successful user interface is how intuitive it is for the user to pick up a device and start using it efficiently. This is what was mostly responsible for the smartphone being able to experience explosive growth. Yet, there is a good chance that this growth will ultimately enable us to no longer need to touch our devices at all. Project Soli, one of Google’s many, many ventures, shows promise toward creating a touch-free manual interface, gestures being used to manipulate our devices via radar.

This can also be seen as a precursor to the three-dimensional interface, as seen in films like Minority Report. There has actually been progress made toward this kind of interface by researcher John Underkoffer, who helped with the creation of the movie.

We can also look to the Iron Man film franchise for another glimpse into the potential future of haptic holograms. While the holograms that we see in most movies are mere projections of light, the ones leveraged by Tony Stark can be interacted with - edited, reorganized, and fundamentally altered by the viewer in the room. These holograms can even mimic a physical keyboard for the user, suggesting that the requirement for bulky physical components may not be so long-lived. 

Almost Unbelievable!

What if you could control devices and information utilizing only your brain? Bioelectronics and Brain-Computer Interface technology could make this a possibility in the not-so-distant future. Essentially, by scanning a user’s brain waves, a computer can translate these waves into actionable commands.

This technology is already being tested in devices like motorized wheelchairs and robotic limbs to aid those who rely on these tools. But this is just the start… further research is being made into how BCI can be used to control devices and household utilities.

Communication is another function that BCI can be used to restore or augment. Implants have been created that permit typing to be done with only the mind, while others are in development that would directly translate brain waves into text. Perhaps most astonishing is an experiment conducted that functionally replicated the effect of telepathy. By having a subject in India think the word “hello,” converting that thought to binary code and emailing it to France, a subject in France received the message after it was reformatted into brainwaves.

On a related note, BCI has also permitted us to take recordings of dreams (albeit low-quality).

Of course, a lot of the potential uses for BCI are a still a long way away, but many could perceivably be used to enhance the overall quality of life for much of humanity quite soon. Only time will tell.

What do you think? Are any of these use cases especially intriguing to you?