Holobands anyone?

While there have recently been many attempts at interface innovation, many of them ultimately fall flat. The Wiimote is easily the most popular of the group, and it is often relegated to goofy mini-games. Using the Playstation Eye as an indicator of Project Natal's future success, I don't expect Microsoft to create an interface truly worthy of replacing the tried true classic 360 controller. In contrast, the touch interface of the latest iPhones has been repeatedly praised and imitated. From an analytical viewpoint, there are a few things that the iPhone and Wiimote interfaces have in common. First, the best parts of them leverage the most natural gesture, pointing. Second, they are implemented with actual physical hardware. The hardware allows an accurate and reliable capture of intent, while tactile responses like "rumbles" provide a venue of feedback to the user. I believe that some type of feedback is key in any product that allows you to virtually touch something.

Until work is done to expand the range of ways users can receive feedback from their devices, innovative methods of input will be wasted. (Virtual Reality anyone... ?) In the meantime, smarter software can still offer an improved user experience. Just look at the standards for any of today's new operating system software. Users expect content to be accessible. Taskbars can be organized. Automatic lists based off of previous activity are maintained. Office 2007 introduced the ribbon toolbar to bring all of it's powerful functionality to the front. Ultimately every aspect of computing can be modified to adapt to what the individual user expects.

Both improving interfaces and making software smarter could potentially lead to a devastated future, as exhibited by popular science fiction. Nobody dreams of becoming addicted to the Matrix, or of fighting off cybernetic life-form nodes who are such good friends that they want to save us from ourselves. Yet, the advance of this technology does have a great potential to improve quality of life. Making software smarter is something that can readily be implemented today, unlike interface advances requiring hardware possibly years beyond our grasp.