Total Recall - C. Gordon Bell [91]
The consumer demand for unified communication and storage is clear. In the long run, those who don’t make it possible to unify their data or stream of communication will wither away. The number one requirement for unification is open systems that employ standards for information exchange. For example, I can get an invitation from Evite into my e-mail client’s calendar because it uses a standardized calendar event format.
Once you have open systems that use standard formats, the next step is the ability to translate. Remember the health data formats that use the code “DPT” to mean different things? Translation software is required to preserve the correct meaning between systems. As anyone who has translated between languages knows, a word-for-word translation is inadequate; it gives us translations that turn “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” to “The alcohol is good but the meat is bad.” Likewise, it can be difficult to translate between storage formats, and a lot of work is yet to go into this effort. The Semantic Web, which aims to standardize transmission and translation of information, is an important effort in this area.
There will also be a unification of networking in the sense that we will cease to have distinct networks for different types of data. Already we get telephone over our cable TV network and TV shows over our telephone’s DSL. Eventually, we will get a digital dial tone that carries anything and everything. In our homes, we will not have TV, telephone, and computer network wiring; we will have a digital home network for everything, and our home server will record TV shows and telephone calls, while it also serves up our e-memories. Our telephones and cell phones will just become small terminals into this universal digital network.
NATURAL USER INTERFACES
Your e-memories will be a vast ocean of data for you to navigate. Software will be your guide, summarizing, data mining, and anticipating what you may need. Still, there will be times that you will want to explore some particular area that has piqued your interest, or search after a very specific item. To take over the helm of this kind of navigation means handling many different controls, some of which may be complex. I recall bringing up one MyLifeBits interface and feeling as if I had sat down in the cockpit of a 747, with a host of knobs and switches to manipulate, and numerous gauges to examine. It was intimidating. But each gauge informs you and every knob empowers you, so getting rid of some of them in the name of simplicity could be dangerous.
I’ve mentioned already that software will be a personal assistant to take care of a lot of the Total Recall chores. It is also critical that software be able to communicate with you in a natural way, just as a personal assistant would. This is called a natural user interface (NUI). With a NUI, you can manipulate your vast e-memory collection in a complex way without the need for lengthy training .
The ideal natural user interface should be able to handle the way you already communicate. You should be able to type or speak in your normal language. “Show me pictures from my last trip to New York.” “When was my last doctor’s appointment?” “Sure,” “OK,” “Uhn-uh.” Gestures should be understood according to your culture, like a thumbs-up for approval or a throat-slashing motion for cutting something off.
You should be able to talk to your computer, but talking isn’t always best. Sometimes