To become ubiquitous OS of the future - All Respond Pls!

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neobard

To become ubiquitous OS of the future - All Respond Pls!

Post by neobard »

I realize that this is a longer term project but it's vital and needs to be started ASAP! So please bear with me... :D

What I am about to suggest IS the way of the computing future. The technology is here now and improving daily, it just needs ALL your brilliant minds to make it happen on the scale it should be to become a new defacto standard in 21st century computing.

Augmented reality; I'm sure most here have at least heard of it.

We must prepare for its mass implementation now & beat the closed-source corporations to the punch!
As I say the technology is here but it's not yet integrated, atleast in the marketplace & not at all as I envision it. Ideally "it" would be integral to the OS and not just an addon.

So you have 2 main aspects or layers; a virtual 3D space which can be interacted with (ala Lawnmower Man) as well as the real world via sensors/cameras which can also be interacted with (augmented reality). and a final interface layer with some more traditional gui aspects.
Why you ask? The possibilities are limitless.. The virtual 3D space would become a completely immersive and visual method by which to locate and execute files and apps (among other things), and programs can more easily tap into new & creative ways to interact & display data.
And the applications for augmenting the real world with digital enhancements are countless.

So the virtual 3D layer should be standardized so that any 3D model in this format be usable, much like a CAD file has become a defacto standard for many 3D applications. Once imported as the "desktop" environment it can be interacted with simply with whatever input you have and APIs must be created for programmatical interaction.

It could be like you are in a game but it's your customized world, your construct.. Imagine, you turn your screen on and see a rendered 3D model of, anything really, but let's say a house. You can choose to start anywhere you like, let's say you start in the lounge. You see a replica of your tv, stereo, dining table etc. Instead of switching on your stereo you decide to head straight for your office in the next room. With a click or gesture you are there looking at your desk & filing cabinet. "Open file: Tax docs", you say as the filing cabinet opens and brings out your requested file.

It should be made fully optioned so the commands can be made by touch/click/gesture or voice at your discretion. Touch commands could be hidden behind objects &/or with passwords. So on an encrypted system, file permissions should include the ability to be seen in both the GUI and the prompt or just one or the other.

As for the AR aspect; a simple scenario to get the gist is, while mobile: You are looking through your visor which has a camera/sensor facing the outside world projecting it's source to the computer on your hip which you see layered together with the interface. You take your hand and choose a virtual ball on screen and pretend to throw it at the nearest wall and watch as it leaves your virtual hand on screen and bounce off the real wall.

Once we reach this stage with a safe, stable, easy-to-use OS, the sky is the limit!

This is the future! Wearable computer projects have already done very similar things but it really should be cooked right into the OS.

Other Must Haves:
Until phones are powerful enough to run all this full-fledged; there should be a new (html5?) standard for mobile apps that will also run on the PC on the side of the screen. Apps could have 2 states if required; one for the side (phone size) and one for a larger screen area. Or they can be made for the app/sidebar only (phone size only). This sidebar would accomodate multiple apps at once when installed on a workstation, scrollable down the side, etc. Many programs never require more than what a phone screen size offers and best suited to be a bit more out-of-the-way than popping up right over what you're working on.

I especially would love to see a good firewall implementation which need only popup in this app/sidebar when requesting permissions.

Ideally this app/sidebar standard would be compatible with future Android/Win8 apps as well as it's own kind.

A big ask? maybe but if we don't do it first, 'their' version will eventually come in some form or other and it will be full of crap and ads and spyware, believe that! And inferior!

Also, forgive me if Mint already has this but, there should be spell check EVERYWHERE (not just in Word etc), with much better databases than you usually get. Did I hear Win 8 has this? Furthermore the combination of this universal dictionary, speech and voice recognition must be incorporated into an Artificial Intelligence engine/wizard to anytime assist in tasks, management, macro-creation, etc. hands free!

I do have illustrations and other ideas for the OS interface but the above is the most crucial, radical and potent ideas to get across. Please tell me if you understand what I'm getting at and help me to make others understand, and get word out to every programmer who might be interested to get on board and help make this a reality!!!!! Thankyou
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tdockery97
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Re: To become ubiquitous OS of the future - ALL RESPOND PLS!

Post by tdockery97 »

Sounds too much like scifi to me. :roll:
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palo
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Re: To become ubiquitous OS of the future - ALL RESPOND PLS!

Post by palo »

tdockery97 wrote:Sounds too much like scifi to me. :roll:
It looked like a very long read so I just skipped to the reviews. Thanks :P

Pat
neobard

Re: To become ubiquitous OS of the future - ALL RESPOND PLS!

Post by neobard »

can we get some serious comments/ideas/questions???
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catweazel
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Re: To become ubiquitous OS of the future - ALL RESPOND PLS!

Post by catweazel »

neobard wrote:The technology is here now and improving daily, it just needs ALL your brilliant minds to make it happen on the scale it should...

Augmented reality
Don't need it. The meds my quack has me on are more than enough.
"There is, ultimately, only one truth -- cogito, ergo sum -- everything else is an assumption." - Me, my swansong.
neobard

Re: To become ubiquitous OS of the future - ALL RESPOND PLS!

Post by neobard »

tdockery97 wrote:Sounds too much like scifi to me. :roll:
Computers were sci-fi at one point. Graphical user interfaces were sci-fi at one point. Mobile phones were sci-fi before they were made a reality. C'mon! Mint is so amazing but it will never stop improving and growing. And so, there should be longer term goals to guide it through bigger changes that incorporate new technologies. What better to inspire and guide it than some good ol' sci-fi?
dee.

Re: To become ubiquitous OS of the future - All Respond Pls!

Post by dee. »

Virtual reality was a big "thing" in the 90s. Everyone thought it would become the next big "thing" and that we'd all be discarding our mouses, keyboards and screens in favour of a virtual environment where we could float in some kind of city made of data and grab files by hand and stuff.

Well, turns out it's a crappy idea. Stuff like that looks flashy and cool in a scifi movie, but for everyday productivity work it's actually more convenient to use keyboards, mouses and screens and access files on your computer by clicking icons or even using the command line in some cases. It's the same reason why voice control never became popular (although it's now being used in smartphones to some extent, but that's because it makes somewhat more sense in that context, due to limited input devices). It's simply easier to type "cp MyFile239 ~/StupidFiles" than to say "Computer, move this file: myfile239, my and file spelled with capital first letters, 239 spelled with numbers, into the directory tilde slash stupidfiles, stupid spelled with..." and so on. The same way, it's also easier to right-click on an icon and select "copy", then paste it somewhere, than it is to put on a virtual reality helmet and gloves, swim around in a huge virtual palace, grab a virtual 3d-representation of a file, swim 20 virtual meters and drop the file in a basket or something.

The main point is, you don't want an "immersive and visual" method for accessing files or writing documents or editing graphics or whatever. You'll want an effective, fast and productive method. That's why the whole virtual reality stuff never quite took off.

As for augmented reality, I predict it's likely going to be the same kind of fad as virtual reality was. And even if it does become mainstream, it's applications will be in the mobile smart-thingy world, desktop computers will have nothing to do with it, so a desktop OS has no reason to ever interact with it.

All your ideas are really unrelated to the desktop/laptop computer, and to my knowledge and from what I can see, Mint aspires to be a really solid desktop OS. It's not meant to be some kind of next-gen-bleeding-edge thingy that runs in phones, wearable computers or refridgerators. I think you'll want Ubuntu for that.
Stewbond

Re: To become ubiquitous OS of the future - All Respond Pls!

Post by Stewbond »

What I like about my mouse/keyboard combo is that I don't need to make big motions.

The sensitivity on my mouse is so high that I don't need to move my hand much, and they keyboard is great for typing (something I can't stand on a tablet virtual keyboard). It's lets me be physically faster wrt my inputs to the OS.

Voice inputs are already available, but they are rarely used. Mostly because when I am at work, I don't want my colleagues hearing everything I am doing. Imagine being at home and saying: "Computer, open firefox, address Girls-With-Knee-Hair-Fetishes-dot-com" while your kids are walking by.

Regarding the UI, Microsoft has already requested a patent and has started on something which looks pretty cool (the holodeck):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z2KVLaQWsW
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingam ... ome-992578

Something I'd like to see would be integration with the entire house. Walking into a room and the lights automatically turn on, your music follows you around, and flat surfaces light up with projections of what you are doing and what utilities are available in that room. Of course, it gets harder to make something generic but something along these lines would be very cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38
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