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The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". The second greatest, though, is quite visual: the int

The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". The second greatest, though, is quite visual: the interface in Minority Report. I wish I could find the interviews with the UI engineers who talked about the influences that went into it.

ferentchak 9y ago
These are great 'low tech' interfaces. Now if you want a great 'advanced' interface think anything in the Cyberpunk genre, hard to beat direct brain interactions. Who needs clumsy words and floating pictures :)
- inputcoffee 9y ago
  I have a few thoughts about this! What is the nature of the thought you want to transmit? How do you make sure that you are not transmitting idle day dreams? How can you be sufficiently precise for a computer? Remember Firefox (Clint Eastwood movie) where you have to think in Russian to launch the weapons (spoiler!). Well, suppose you casually "thought" the word "shoot" or "fire" or whatever the Russian equivalent is? Suppose your friend -- Maverick -- is goofing around with you and you're both in an inverted dive and you just think. "Oh that guy. Sometimes, I just want to launch at him." The best way to interface is with language! You should have to say the command out loud or to type it out. That way you are being precise and deliberate. Of course, it would be even better if you have a specialized language that was free of the ambiguity of human speech...
  - ferentchak 9y ago
    I always imagine it being like when I want to raise my arm. Except instead of "Raise arm" it would be "Fire z missiles"
  - xg15 9y ago
    You can (and should) ask those questions about any kind of UI. How to make sure you don't hit the wrong button? What happens if the image recognition misinterprets your gesture? What happens if the voice recognition can't understand context and misinterprets things as commands? (Hey, turns out the last one is a real problem people struggle with at the moment) That's why the field of UI design exists at all - and I don't think neural interfaces would be any exception to that: They will require their own kind of UI design. Of course today, we don't know much about the possible design primitives, but I could imagine it becoming interesting...
logfromblammo 9y ago
I am almost certain that I would hate using the Minority Report interface, as it was depicted in the film. If Tom Cruise's character actually had to use that every day, his deltoids would be the size of bowling balls. And I'm sure his manager loves to see exactly what he's doing from 100m away. If you stuck that UI into a pair of VR-AR goggles, and replaced the huge gorilla-arm movements with barely-visible finger twitches, I might consider it.
- mwfunk 9y ago
  I've always felt the same way. Looks really cool, and probably a lot more appropriate for a movie than what people would really use, but really awkward and impractical for the tasks it's supposed to help accomplish. It's sort of like having to swing a Wiimote to swing a sword in a game. Initial novelty value is great, but after a while, if you could do the same thing by simply pushing a button, why wouldn't you just push a button? No matter how good the motion tracking is, if it's not the most efficient way to accomplish the task, there's no point to it. Aside from how cool it looks and the cinematic qualities that made it appropriate for the movie, everything he used that UI for could have been done much more efficiently with a mouse and keyboard-based UI.
- jpindar 9y ago
  I've had a job that involved pressing buttons and turning knobs on a tall stack of test equipment. It did make my shoulders sore if I had to do that repeatedly for too long. Luckily I was able to hook the equipment up to a computer and automate the repetitive parts.
- mcbits 9y ago
  I want a VR interface that merely simulates a room full of monitors, controlled via a workout machine to keep me in shape while generating 30 watts to power the headset - or potentially the whole system.
Arizhel 9y ago
>The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". No, that was the absolute worst UI in the history of films. Spoken words simply cannot carry remotely as much information as visually-seen images. Haven't you ever heard the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words"? Let me give a modern-day example: at a typical Panera Bread restaurant right now, you can order a sandwich either by talking to some teenager at the counter, or by using the touchscreen kiosk. Panera lets you customize sandwiches heavily, by changing the bread, adding cheeses, changing/adding toppings, etc. So I walk into a Panera and would like to order a tuna sandwich but I want to see all the different options and make it completely customized. They have probably 20 different kinds of bread alone, not to mention all the other options. So which do you think is more efficient, having some teenager rattle off 20 kinds of bread, or looking at them on a screen? And how do I know what these breads are anyway? How long is it going to take for some teenager to tell me what all those things are, and maybe show me samples, compared to just looking at some photos on the screen? How about just verifying the order? With the teenager, how long will it take him to read off the entire order to me, and what is the possibility that the information will be received incorrectly because I can't hear him that well, he speaks with an accent or lisp, there's too much noise, or he just misspeaks or skips something? With a screen, I can see the order printed out exactly.
- lrc 9y ago
  The teenager has a job, which is a small but positive increment in the health of your community. For that, I would be willing to endure the (real) risks you mention.
  - sporkenfang 9y ago
    Yeah I'd rather have the teenager (or, actually, since it's been awhile since I saw a fast food clerk under the age of 40, the probable mom of several teenagers) for that reason. Even though it may be more efficient for the customer to have the touch screen, I don't think service automation is so black and white.
  - Arizhel 9y ago
    So you're willing to suffer reduced inefficiency just so someone else has a job? Why not just hire the teenager to stand around doing nothing then? Then you get the benefits of both! Risks? I also cited actual, real benefits. How do I order my sandwich with a different kind of bread with the teenager? I don't. It's not possible. The customers behind me will get very mad if I ask the teenager to list off all 20 different kinds of bread, and to show them all to me personally too. The teenager likely will not do as I ask here, plus it's a massive waste of my time too. Ordering from humans works OK when you have a very short and simple menu so there's little chance for confusion, but this means it's quite impossible to have a lot of selection. How about this idea: let's get rid of computer monitors, and replace them with verbal-only interfaces. How well do you think it's going to work out if you want to order a pair of shoes on Amazon.com (or any online store) when you can't even see them, and just have something reading text into your ear? Or, because you're so concerned about employment, maybe we should ban computer users from reading monitors, and require them to hire people to read stuff from the screen to them! Finally, would you mind if I came over and smashed your car windows? You shouldn't; you should be happy, because that means someone will have a job replacing those windows.

ferentchak 9y ago

These are great 'low tech' interfaces. Now if you want a great 'advanced' interface think anything in the Cyberpunk genre, hard to beat direct brain interactions. Who needs clumsy words and floating pictures :)

inputcoffee 9y ago
I have a few thoughts about this! What is the nature of the thought you want to transmit? How do you make sure that you are not transmitting idle day dreams? How can you be sufficiently precise for a computer? Remember Firefox (Clint Eastwood movie) where you have to think in Russian to launch the weapons (spoiler!). Well, suppose you casually "thought" the word "shoot" or "fire" or whatever the Russian equivalent is? Suppose your friend -- Maverick -- is goofing around with you and you're both in an inverted dive and you just think. "Oh that guy. Sometimes, I just want to launch at him." The best way to interface is with language! You should have to say the command out loud or to type it out. That way you are being precise and deliberate. Of course, it would be even better if you have a specialized language that was free of the ambiguity of human speech...
- ferentchak 9y ago
  I always imagine it being like when I want to raise my arm. Except instead of "Raise arm" it would be "Fire z missiles"
- xg15 9y ago
  You can (and should) ask those questions about any kind of UI. How to make sure you don't hit the wrong button? What happens if the image recognition misinterprets your gesture? What happens if the voice recognition can't understand context and misinterprets things as commands? (Hey, turns out the last one is a real problem people struggle with at the moment) That's why the field of UI design exists at all - and I don't think neural interfaces would be any exception to that: They will require their own kind of UI design. Of course today, we don't know much about the possible design primitives, but I could imagine it becoming interesting...

logfromblammo 9y ago

I am almost certain that I would hate using the Minority Report interface, as it was depicted in the film. If Tom Cruise's character actually had to use that every day, his deltoids would be the size of bowling balls. And I'm sure his manager loves to see exactly what he's doing from 100m away. If you stuck that UI into a pair of VR-AR goggles, and replaced the huge gorilla-arm movements with barely-visible finger twitches, I might consider it.

mwfunk 9y ago
I've always felt the same way. Looks really cool, and probably a lot more appropriate for a movie than what people would really use, but really awkward and impractical for the tasks it's supposed to help accomplish. It's sort of like having to swing a Wiimote to swing a sword in a game. Initial novelty value is great, but after a while, if you could do the same thing by simply pushing a button, why wouldn't you just push a button? No matter how good the motion tracking is, if it's not the most efficient way to accomplish the task, there's no point to it. Aside from how cool it looks and the cinematic qualities that made it appropriate for the movie, everything he used that UI for could have been done much more efficiently with a mouse and keyboard-based UI.
jpindar 9y ago
I've had a job that involved pressing buttons and turning knobs on a tall stack of test equipment. It did make my shoulders sore if I had to do that repeatedly for too long. Luckily I was able to hook the equipment up to a computer and automate the repetitive parts.
mcbits 9y ago
I want a VR interface that merely simulates a room full of monitors, controlled via a workout machine to keep me in shape while generating 30 watts to power the headset - or potentially the whole system.

Arizhel 9y ago

>The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". No, that was the absolute worst UI in the history of films. Spoken words simply cannot carry remotely as much information as visually-seen images. Haven't you ever heard the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words"? Let me give a modern-day example: at a typical Panera Bread restaurant right now, you can order a sandwich either by talking to some teenager at the counter, or by using the touchscreen kiosk. Panera lets you customize sandwiches heavily, by changing the bread, adding cheeses, changing/adding toppings, etc. So I walk into a Panera and would like to order a tuna sandwich but I want to see all the different options and make it completely customized. They have probably 20 different kinds of bread alone, not to mention all the other options. So which do you think is more efficient, having some teenager rattle off 20 kinds of bread, or looking at them on a screen? And how do I know what these breads are anyway? How long is it going to take for some teenager to tell me what all those things are, and maybe show me samples, compared to just looking at some photos on the screen? How about just verifying the order? With the teenager, how long will it take him to read off the entire order to me, and what is the possibility that the information will be received incorrectly because I can't hear him that well, he speaks with an accent or lisp, there's too much noise, or he just misspeaks or skips something? With a screen, I can see the order printed out exactly.

lrc 9y ago
The teenager has a job, which is a small but positive increment in the health of your community. For that, I would be willing to endure the (real) risks you mention.
- sporkenfang 9y ago
  Yeah I'd rather have the teenager (or, actually, since it's been awhile since I saw a fast food clerk under the age of 40, the probable mom of several teenagers) for that reason. Even though it may be more efficient for the customer to have the touch screen, I don't think service automation is so black and white.
- Arizhel 9y ago
  So you're willing to suffer reduced inefficiency just so someone else has a job? Why not just hire the teenager to stand around doing nothing then? Then you get the benefits of both! Risks? I also cited actual, real benefits. How do I order my sandwich with a different kind of bread with the teenager? I don't. It's not possible. The customers behind me will get very mad if I ask the teenager to list off all 20 different kinds of bread, and to show them all to me personally too. The teenager likely will not do as I ask here, plus it's a massive waste of my time too. Ordering from humans works OK when you have a very short and simple menu so there's little chance for confusion, but this means it's quite impossible to have a lot of selection. How about this idea: let's get rid of computer monitors, and replace them with verbal-only interfaces. How well do you think it's going to work out if you want to order a pair of shoes on Amazon.com (or any online store) when you can't even see them, and just have something reading text into your ear? Or, because you're so concerned about employment, maybe we should ban computer users from reading monitors, and require them to hire people to read stuff from the screen to them! Finally, would you mind if I came over and smashed your car windows? You shouldn't; you should be happy, because that means someone will have a job replacing those windows.