Introducing the HUD. Say hello to the future of the menu.

"Hi, I'm Eddie, your shipboard computer!"

In the name of all that's good, NO!!!!!!!!

Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, The

The corporation's 'Genuine People Personalities' make interacting with objects such as doors and teasmades a new and exciting adventure. Or very irritating, depending on your frame of mind.

Doors will always open politely, and it will be their pleasure to serve your entrance and exit needs. Their Happy Vertical People Transporters - or Lifts - are fitted with the most recent precognition software, allowing them to be on the floor you want, before you know you want it!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes," with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent.

Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica that chanced to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."

"I think you ought to know that I'm feeling very depressed..."

I'm sorry, Mark. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Ubuntu on BBC News?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16731071

That BBC article must be a rough draft of this year's Aprils Fools story, mistakenly released early by some BBC intern:

After all, everybody knows that

* this Linux thing (including the relatively "popular" Ubuntu flavor) are still just not ready for the desktop, let alone typical use by typical users

* Linux is used on such a vanishingly small percentage of systems that it might as well not exist, and

* consequently, Linux (including Ubuntu) can be of no practical or possible interest to the ordinary users of desktop computers who might chance to be reading the BBC Technology page.

They're right, Linux isn't ready for the desktop. It was ready, but then Ubuntu and Gnome had to simultaneously screw everything up.

on voice recognition: even when the quality problems are solved, it would still raise the noise level in the office. which may be fine if you work in a call center where your main job is talking, but i can't see (erm, hear) it working in an office full of programmers or other writing jobs where the main job is thinking...

and in Star Trek i don't actually see that much talking going on. most of it happens when one person is alone in a room doing some research, or on a small ship with only one person comanding it. but i can't remember any scenes of someone talking to the computer on the bridge or the engine room when there are lots of people (which doesn't mean those scenes don't exist, just that they are less common).

nevertheless, the HUD might lead into the direction and would leave both options. in addition, the HUD would show what you say as opposed to menues opening and actions happening magically, so that i can still use typing to correct a command if the computer got it slightly wrong, or use mouse or keyboard to select one of the possible actions. so, yes, this might just work...

greetings, eMBee.

Don't you realize that Federation starships have ambient noise dampening systems just like they have inertial dampening systems and Heisenberg compensaters on the transporters?!?! C'mon now!!! You don't expect Ensign Regalowics to interfere with Captain Piccard's beauty shot do you?!?! It's like you believe that antigravity lifting devices are fantasy or something.

The trouble with voice operated systems is that everything is slowed down by the speed of sound and -- worse -- the speed of spoken language. Not to mention the inherent ambiguities in spoken language. So aside from the daily "work flow" on a starship, there are going to be any number of situations in which that delay (and/or confusion) is going to be outright dangerous, or fatal.

For most people, speaking is somewhat-to-much faster than typing. Unless your computer is set up with some kind of buttons/icons/shortcuts for specific actions, giving it commands in plain English will be faster with a voice interface, assuming the voice recognition works well and doesn't get confused by background noise. For example: "computer, look up all class M planets within 50 light-years of this location that are known to be inhabited". Even fast typists can say that faster than they can type it, and if it's an operation you don't do often, there isn't likely to be a really convenient GUI to make that a matter of a few clicks.

"Computer, target the vulnerable points of that second ship before it can turn it's unshielded side away from us".

An even better example. Unless your weapons officer knows offhand what the best points to attack are, the computer can probably do it faster and better, looking up that class of Romulan warbird and finding its most vulnerable points visible from this side and targeting phasers.

It's one thing being able to use language in a complex and nuanced way to express what you desire efficiently, it is another thing entirely a different thing to have a computer sufficiently complex enough to understand you accurately and in a reasonably short time frame.

Even a simple statement as Bernard's above is full of context, background knowledge. Additionally, there are a lot of separate instructions in that one sentence.

As I said voice command is the end-game for interfaces of course, but I see the practical application of it long into the future.

interesting things can happen: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Terrorists!.aspx (this is relevant to the discussion in this thread, but i don't want to spoil the punch-line)

greetings, eMBee.

When I'm in the web browser, I'm very much OK with typing in a few letters of a web site and letting the browser auto-complete it. I rarely go to the bookmarks for oft-visted sites.

This is a roundabout way of saying that the menu systems in Unity and GNOME 3 which allow you to type in a few letters and have your desired app predicted for you may not be so counter-intuitive after all.

Search capability is a great way to improve the usability of a menu. But you can add this without crippling the original functionality of the menu and the option to easily look through what the menu contains.

You could also have the menu system weight which choices are made most often, and include a hide button so that only the most used are shown... with another button to hide it altogether. That would serve the same purpose as the kind of prediction, and reduction of clutter, that this HUD is seeking to do.

I personally think HUD is a solution in search of a problem. It's geared more for voice recognition than for desktop use. And, I REALY hope it can be switched out for a traditional menu... I wouldn't mind it in a car with voice activation though,... button on the stering wheel to activate the mic... It'd be nifty.

jasep: didn't or doesn't windows do that with people complaining about it?

the problem with hiding menu entries is that it makes them hard to discover. also, it confuses spatial memory. (i am sure this entry was on the 2nd from the left, 3 down) the hud would address a different memory. (it was something with "foo", so i type "foo" and it shows up)

greetings, eMBee.

Ribbon?!?!

Nope, what, I'm more talking about is something akin to what the VLC settings/preferences menu does, but implemented with something more like the prediction that this HUD is supposed to do.

With MS's "ribbon," you have to hunt through a list of options if you don't find it where you would expect it. I have to use MS stuff at work. When they "upgraded" us to the latest "Office," I found myself wondering why they just didn't switch us to LibreOffice. LibreOffice works more like the old Excel & Word than the new Excel & Word do...