Bandwidth at the Human Interface | A Tale of Two Ages of Computing
What divides this age of computing from the next? In this age, we have extended the personal computing paradigm to screens of all sizes as the personal computing paradigm relies on our eyes and their remarkable ability to ingest information as the high bandwidth interface connecting human mind and logical system.
In return, we click, tap, swipe, bang, type, and occasionally speak in a strange and commanding voice. Low bandwidth input, high bandwidth output. That is the model of the current age of computing.
As we exceed the capacity of the interfaces of the current age, we believe that computing is good enough. Not because it is, but because it is bottle-necked. The “system” is simply chocked at the interface, saturating the channel. It is only when that bottleneck breaks, and the waves of input and response flow between human and machine shores – itself a major technology problem – that the next age of computing begins. The precursors create bandwidth at the human interface, and open us to the future.
I could explicate the waves that are breaking against the wall, but I’m not ready. And its my blog, I can wait until I am ready.
At the outer fringe as we begin to see the precursors of the next age of computing, we see the emergence of higher bandwidth, richer context interfaces. In the social sense, we become the interface. In the immersive sense, we enter the interface. In the sensual sense, we integrate the interface. We move beyond click, tap and swipe – today’s hype is just the last breath at the end of an age.
From the information system looking back at us, the information system, once looked upon, is now looking AT US. It is interpreting us. It is interpreting, guessing, branching, to approach knowing us. It does this on our behalf. It does this on behalf of others. It watches because it is being told to watch. It acts, speculatively, to serve us. The paradigm of screens is amplified, and broken. Screens becomes windows to abstractions laid upon the world, not separate from it, integrated into it.
In the age following the next, the information system stops giving a damn about us. Thank you Dillinger.
EOL.
