Bret Victor on Microsoft’s Future Vision video:
Pictures Under Glass is old news. Let’s start using our hands.
Microsoft controls the Xbox hardware and software. They require game developers to register themselves, and all Xbox games must be approved by Microsoft. You can’t even develop games using the Xbox.
Would you say the Xbox represents the end of video games?
Alex:
Here’s the future of computing : no computer.
Great article about the iPad and how UI became more relevant than gigahertz.
Recently, I’ve read a lot of interesting posts about the iPad and the future of computing, and then some posts about the ReadWriteWeb/Facebook login page: some say we’re the stupid ones, others say no, we’re not. Anyway, the Internets talked about the n00bs.
(seriously, read these articles, it’s worth it)
My favorite feature of the iPad as a device for n00bs — but also with the iPhone OS as a system for 75 000 000 people — is the hidden filesystem: no file, no folder, no double-click to open a document or an application.
(Please don’t think I’m saying the iPad is only for the n00bs. I think it will be the very first good computing experience for A LOT of users)
I’ve seen friends and colleagues from the IT sphere being afraid of change, scared about losing the multitasking feature, the right-click, the windows… It’s not going to happen.
Time for the never-ending cars analogy: the firsts automobiles were for people who knew how to deal with a broken engine. They had to know how to fix a car. I have no idea how to fix an engine, and the best part is, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to use my car, only go where I have to. When it’s broken, I bring it to an expert, the kind of guy who has a better car he uses and fix every week, because he loves to.
The Macintosh didn’t kill the shell. It brought mouse to the IT sphere and computing to the Real World. 25 years later, I still use a shell everyday, and my father has no idea he can right-click on his Mighty Mouse. I’m pretty sure the iPad will hide the filesystem from the n00bs the same way Mac OS X hides the shell from the real world. I know computer experts will always have a shell to create a great computer world for them and the Real World.
Rory Marinich:
It’s easy to look at the iPad skeptically and say that, no, it’s not doing anything truly new. It’s basing itself off the iPhone and the Macbook. Sure, the unibody is revolutionary, the battery is revolutionary, the interface is revolutionary, but it’s all been done before. To which I say, Yes, but it’s never been done all at once. It’s like how Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band wasn’t making any sort of music that wasn’t all pioneered. Yeah, but it did it all at once. And after it came out, music exploded because suddenly everything was allowed. This is kind of like that.
