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The Computers Are Disappearing.
They’re these windows into another world. Some are tiny, a watch face, mobiles. Then there’s the massive in-your-face sphere in Las Vegas. Screens represent the interface into the another dimension, one that contests our realities every day.
They are obvious. They are driven by computers, quietly humming machines dreamed up in our imaginations. As all technologies are a realization of human imagination. Sometimes, the best technologies we create are the ones that are boring or eventually, become invisible.
Many computers today have become invisible to us. When you bark at Alexa, Siri or Google, how often do you ponder the massive, energy hungry beasts squatting in football length buildings in some remote part of the world?
Screens remain the biggest, most pervasive way we interact with the digital sphere, with cyberspace. The input technologies and tools being keyboards, a mouse, a little bit of voice. We’ve tried making these sensors where we wave our hands and squiggle and pinch our fingers, but no one really seems to like that approach very much. These are called User Interfaces (UI.)
There are a lot of very smart people who fuss over UIs from software engineers to designers. Whole teams of people who agonize for hours and spend countless minutes on Slack channels debating button size, position and colour…
