Quad-core iPhones with GPGPU acceleration and firmware 3.0?

[basix]

The last office install I worked on had Cisco touchscreen video voip phones and a control module on the desk for white noise. This combination works amazingly.

I think that the while touch is great for navigation through content, it's input capabilities remain unproductive. Niche markets as kiosks and on-the-fly activity-based devices can benefit from it's simplistic UI traits. Voice recognition has been around for a LONG time and hasn't gained any (percievable) ground in any area that I have encountered. These are all great input and navigation experiences for disabled users as accesibility options.

The keyboard ain't broke so don't fix it. And knobs and dials? What will the expert knob twittlers do without them?

"Go forward 20 meters, turn to 45 degrees right, go forward 20 meters" : This reminds me of ZORK ; )

Edited January 13, 2009 by basix

[Smigit]

That's more AI than voice recognition. Voice recognition turns the sounds into words, it doesn't assign them meaning.

And even then, what about games, "Go forward 20 meters, turn to 45 degrees right, go forward 20 meters" would be different depending on every game, they might share the same units if they're the same engine, but going from HL2 to Bioshock won't work.

How many games need keyboards really? Think about it, most use maybe 10 keys tops anyway; certainly nowhere near the number offered by the keyboard and voice in most games has killed the need for many users to use much more than the W A S D keys already for many users.

I didn't say other input devices won't exist, just that keyboards will become less and less important.

[Srugie Veteran]

This would be the first win for Apple in the gaming department if this was to happen.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

How many games need keyboards really? Think about it, most use maybe 10 keys tops anyway; certainly nowhere near the number offered by the keyboard and voice in most games has killed the need for many users to use much more than the W A S D keys already for many users.

I didn't say other input devices won't exist, just that keyboards will become less and less important.

I haven't see a game that doesn't use a keyboard, sure they dumb down the control scheme for console users and such, but most still use keys, and depending on the game they can use a small amount (6-7) to a lot (like 25)

If we're always going to need a keyboard, I don't see why we need to replace it, while still keeping it and using it.

[Smigit]

Well yeah but thats my point. Games use it but they don't really take advantage of it. Also arguably there is better ways for games to be controlled than a keyboard anyway. Take FPS for example which use WASD for movement. That gives you 8 directions of movement. Surely there is some benefit to using a device that can map to more directions.

I really don't see why we will always need a keyboard but. I simply cannot agree with that as your basically saying in 20, 50 or even 100 years we won't have developed anything more efficient than using a keyboard? Hell if iit isn't touch or audio based perhaps it will neural based. If you can wear something and all you have to do is think for an output to happen then what would make people want to skip to a keyboard? Theres already some research into such devices.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Well think about this, the first concepts of a typewriter were laid down in the 1700's, we still haven't made a better system.

Neural links might come close to replacing them, but keyboards are simple and they work, all the other replacements that people have come up with are more complicated or slower to use.

[REM2000]

Keyboard won't be going away for a long time yet, however with a lot of technology many things don't have to be stopped for another to succeed, i think we will see more hybrids, combinations of touch and tactile, as the poster who commented on Cisco system.

As for the cores = multitasking, Apple doesn't need dual or quad cores to multitask the iPhone a single core processor is capable of multitasking.

This may have an impact on games however this processor could also be used in a desktop/laptop combination. They may decide to use it to throw out designated tasks to the processor. For example transcoding video. However with CUDA and OpenAL perhaps this will be give to the GPU anyway.