There was an interesting discussion at the GigaOM Conference in San Francisco this month about a change in computing right now that is as significant as anything we may see in our lifetime. It’s about how computers are no longer these dumb, mute boxes that sit on a desk, but rather have developed enough intelligence to understand human actions…and react to it.
The leading example of this is the new iPhone 4S with the human speech recognition program called Siri. With Apple’s new phone, a user can now ask Siri to “call my wife when I leave the office” and it shall be done. Stop and think about that for a minute. A phone now understands in human language how to automatically dial a number, who your wife is, and when you leave your office. Scary? Perhaps, but there’s more.
One of the most difficult challenges in computing has been to give technology the ability to see and process data the same way that a human brain can process images as we see them with our eyes. That’s why no computer can drive a car safely….until now. Google has been working on new technology (confirmed by co-founder Sergey Brin last month) that resulted in a successful 1,000 miles pilot drive of a car with no human control through busy urban areas and highways.
Using a $75,000 laser radar mounted on the roof and a computer processing detailed map data in the trunk, the “Googlecar” still has a human passenger who rides along (and who one would expect is well-paid and has very good insurance) just in case anything goes wrong. The tests have not been without mishap as reported by CNET last August when one of Google’s cars crashed in Mountain View, CA. But 1,000 miles of robotic driving is still an astounding feat and it shows that we are really not that far away from a world where cars simply take us where we tell them to go.
The ability for computers to understand human gestures first hit the consumer scene in 2006 with Wii games, and is now moving rapidly into other worlds propelled strongly by Microsoft and its Kinect technology. Just a few days ago, Microsoft announced new hardware for Kinect called Near Mode that will allow for closer interaction. This significance of this can be found in a recent promotional video by the company where we can see people playing virtual violins and keyboards in space, surgeons scanning x-rays just by waving their hands, and a robot mimicking the hand gestures of a man as he remotely removes a tool from the trunk of car. Pretty bizarre but there’s no denying that the technology has actually come this far indeed.
“I don’t want to sound like science fiction, but that’s the point,” said Mark Rolston, Chief Creative Officer of Frog Design, as he described some of these new developments at GigaOM. “This is happening right now.”
So it might be time to dust off some of those old science fiction paperbacks where robots and sophisticated computers take over our daily lives. We seem to be heading down a path where fiction indeed becomes reality.
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