“For years, we’ve relied on familiar GUI (graphical user interface) tools and methods — the keyboard and mouse; menus and commands; clicking and scrolling; files and folders — to control and manipulate computers and the applications that run on them,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer writes for The Huffington Post.
“But I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year we expanded beyond the mouse and keyboard and started incorporating more natural forms of interaction such as touch, speech, gestures, handwriting, and vision — what computer scientists call the ‘NUI’ or natural user interface,” Ballmer writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Ballmer, visionary.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe J.” for the heads up.]
I love ballmer, as every Apple shareholder should
The interface of the future: MS Office Ribbon!
I have a few gestures for Mr. Ballmer.
Balmer ? You are little late!
2010 is the year we start incorporating vision into computing. Does that mean that up until now we have been using computers with our eyes closed, or that the IT industry has been meandering along without any clear direction or purpose?
For years, we’ve relied on Apple methods — the keyboard and mouse; menus and commands; clicking and scrolling; files and folders — to control and manipulate computers and the applications that run on them,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer writes for The Huffington Post.
“But I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year we relied on Apple even more and expand beyond the mouse and keyboard and started incorporating more natural forms of interaction such as touch, speech, gestures, handwriting, and vision — what computer scientists call the ‘NUI’ or natural user interface,” Ballmer writes.
Niji =
Nothing to see here, just your typical me-too reaction to counter forthcoming new Apple hardware. It’s gotta be wearing thin for most people by now – surely?
I want innovation by Microsoft to push Apple but this is embarrasing
He looks like Mr. Rogers met (or was eaten by) Uncle Fester . . .
MBUI is coming – Microsoft Bob User Interface.
Classic. Read the comments below the orignal article.
but…but…but… people WANT a physical keyboard on their phone, right Mr. Ballmer? You said so yourself!
Sorry, but I doubt the keyboard and mouse will go away. Far too intuitive and engrained into how we work at this point. And pretty darn logical too. MultiTouch as Apple has presented it and developed it works great for certain applications, but I doubt it can work as a replacement for both the keyboard and the mouse on anything more than a tablet.
I believe that when Ballmer says “in 2010, we will expand….”, he is actually talking about himself.
Does that mean I have to buy a Big Ass Table for my next “laptop”?
But I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year we expanded beyond . . . no . . . make that 2011 . . . no, wait, 2012, or maybe 2013.
D’oh! Just make it 2020.
But does he know WHY they should add gestures to the interface? I bet he can’t answer that question because he doesn’t get it that you only add something if there’s a good reason to, not just because everyone else is doing it.
I suppose if Apple was selling dog pooh sandwiches he would declare 2010 the year of the s**t sandwich.
As always Mr Ballmer wants you to send feedback on this and other emerging technologies to Microsofts R&D;dept.
1 Infinite Loop Cupertino Ca. haha
Ballmer acts like this ‘revolution’ is news simply because Microsoft hasn’t done it before… that is, since they haven’t it must not exist.
While I’ve always thought OUR Steve is the most arrogant man on the planet, Ballmer (as always) is trying real hard to take the title away from Jobs.
Note to Ballmer: something else Apple does you can’t beat.
When are we going to accept the fact that all of these technologies were stolen from Star Trek. Huh?!
2010, the year we admit apple has a better interface and rip off the iphone wholesale…
Does Ballmer look like he has lost some weight?
I suppose for Ballmer it will be sweat gestures. Lift your arms and let that pungent pool gesture to your computer
I believe his inspiration is based on repeatedly seeing the middle finger gesture shown to him so often. The man may be stupid, but he’s not blind.
No, he looks like his head shrunk!
The scary thing is, I’m pretty sure there are many Microsoft execs who use the Jon Rubinstein approach to competitors’ products: “Never used them! In fact, I’ve never even thought about them!”
Which means that, when Microsoft tries to make it sound like they’re inventing things that other companies have been doing for years, it’s entirely possible there are a lot of Microsoft execs who actually believe it.
notice that he is trying to figure out the “right hand rule” for vectors using his left hand.
2007 was that year, when the iPhone and iPod touch were released. 2010 will be be year Apple expands the concept to larger devices. Steve Ballmer is just restating the obvious…
Balmer: “. . .and started incorporating more natural forms of interaction such as touch, speech, gestures,. . .”
Silly me, I thought he was referring to his gesticulating-style of “dancing.”
Seriously Ballmer, if you’re now in the Mac rumors business, pull up a ball next to Leo Laporte.
We…? We…? Do you have mouse in your pocket?
Domain Search
ILIKEOURSTRATEGYILIKEITALOT.COM is available
Bing!
Why does ANYONE listen to this guy?!
It’s too bad the 98% of the Windows market using drones will believe that Microsoft ushered the age of his so called NUI. “Numb-ass User Interface”
microsh*t vaporware
More insight from Captain Obvious.
What pisses me off is now that this frigtard has stated this, the lackey IT media, the clueless business media shills that Microsoft has bought off long ago, and sites like CNET will act in lock-step like sock puppets to begin the PR spin that this was Ballmer’s (and by extension, Microsoft’s) big idea all along. They will attempt to keep repeating it until the clueless lumpenproletariat of consumers start to believe that Microsoft was the creator of ideas that Apple and others pioneered long ago.
The silver lining to this story is that slowly, some in the media are growing more cynical about these scripted PR forays by Microsoft and its allied PR firms (Waggner-Edstrom being the primary source). Where Bill Gates once walked on water, Monkeyboy does not float as well with the business, and increasingly, IT media. If the rumors about Microsoft’s disastrously managed mobile division are true, Windows Mobile 7 may not be available until 2011 at least. By then, Apple and Google will be so far along with their opposing operating systems that even Microsoft, with all its largesse, won’t be able to compete. (I did not mention RIM, not that they don’t have market share, but because their OS trails Apple, and to a lesser extent, Google pretty badly.)
Yeah, I like their strategy alright. I like it a lot.
That said, brace yourself as the chorus of monkeys start to sing. Remember folks, it was Ballmer’s idea all along. You heard it here first.
MDN, what happened? That picture of Ballmer makes him look almost normal.
“We are already ahead. We have the Big Ass Table. We just need to get our hands on an iSlate to learn how to make it a little smaller.”
Okay, let’s replace everyone’s keyboard and mouse with voice recognition and see if they notice the difference–when they are all sitting at tables in the bookstore or in a lounge at the airport.
Voice recognition is only good if you are all alone in the house. Otherwise, no privacy. Give me a keyboard!
Wow finally they have copied it right. From the touchscreen iPhone keyboard to the multi-touch Magic Mouse. They have come up with a breakthrough that they think that it will change the world of computing. Redmond, use your head right. Multi touch has been on the market for so many years. Gosh, look who’s the innovator now. I can’t wait to see what’s lie on the next version of Mac OS. WWDC here we come.
Mac OSX: the world’s most advanced operating system, it just works, it cost less, find out why.
@Ha!
That was good!
This was originally tried as a product in the early 90’s with the Newton MessagePad. It too was developed specifically as a new computer platform free of the keyboard and mouse. Used a touch screen with a stylus and had a library of simple gestures in place of commands.
@Steve516: “Sorry, but I doubt the keyboard and mouse will go away. Far too intuitive and engrained into how we work at this point. And pretty darn logical too. MultiTouch as Apple has presented it and developed it works great for certain applications, but I doubt it can work as a replacement for both the keyboard and the mouse on anything more than a tablet”
Sorry but gestures are a much more intuitive replacement for speech, always has been. Even before humans had writing systems they had ways of communicating beyond speech. Even today, it’s much easier to interact in sign language than to have to write everything down. Sign language is just another form of communicating through the use of gestures. Eeven when we speak, we all use various types of gestures.
People are proficient with keyboards because of practice, there’s no reason another form of input would be any less proficient or intuitive.
@ Harvey: “Okay, let’s replace everyone’s keyboard and mouse with voice recognition and see if they notice the difference–when they are all sitting at tables in the bookstore or in a lounge at the airport.”
Completely agree with this. It is already annoying enough to have to listen to people on their cell phones yacking away. To have to listen to them enter text in a field, will just end up with more shootings in the world.
Apple could use a shorthand library to help people enter text on the go. It does have a learning curve, but so does typing and using a computer.
MS…. They have always an ambitious plan. But look at product! Crap, crap, crap!!! I have no idea how much they have spent money to build these shit. I think windows 7 is only product that seems successful. No matter what they say like something will be beyond, I just ignore it.
Ballmer looks like he is saying to someone…The Apple store is thaaaaaaat way…..
The MouSe is the only product from MSFT that is reliable and works as expected. Too bad.
Just trying to follow Apple’s lead?
Yep, for the past 25 years.
How is it that MS share holders have not banded together and given this bozo the boot.
Kind of like NBC and Leno but that is getting of topic.
I’m going to go against the grain here and state that I am impressed with Microsoft’s Project Natal. The 3D motion recognition that has been demoed is actually quite exciting. Robbie Back, the head of MS Entertainment looks like his group is making breakthrough strides. He also makes a good presentation. If you can bear wading through the boring Ballmer portion of the CES keynote, you’ll see Bach put on pretty impressive demo. They promise Natal on X-Box for 2010 Holiday Season. If they make it, they will have a blockbuster. If the Microsoft Board had half a brain, they’d make this guy CEO.
Next thing ya know, Microsuck will make:
A keyboard thingy that types with keys you push with your fingers.
A puck-like device that you move around on the desk to move a cursor – not yet invented by Microsuck.
A small device that holds data on a floppy-disk based medium. We’ll call them “floppies”
Lord, that guy is a 300 lb fucking embarrassment…
Just where did they, and all their little box makers, get the mouse and the GUI? And the colors of the machines and adopting the floppy drive and abandoning the floppy drive, and the translucent icon, etc etc. Without Steve Jobs, using computers would still be endless lines of coded inputs and arguing over whether green letters on black or amber is best.
Ballmer actually called the new interface, APPLUI.
No, that was not a sneeze, it’s the Apple User Interface, APPLUI. Whatever it is, MS will use it.
We’ll expand beyond the ideas we copied from Apple in 1995 and onto the ideas we’ll copy from them Apple in 2010.
Having used Dragon Dictation on my iPhone for the past few days, I realy can’t say that I have ever used a voice-to-text app as accurately.
Based on this experience, I would suggest that text entering via the traditional keyboard is quite possibly on its way out. Perhaps not tomorrow, but eventually, and soon.
Even Dragon Search is a joy. And both ork on the iPhone and 2/3d generation iPod touches. Using them on the iSlate is a no-brainer.
Ballmer’s take is not without merit. In fact, much of what he predicts will come about; only sooner than he has been told. Perhaps much of which will have begun on January the 27th, 2010.
Apple demonstrated these technologies over 2 decades ago.
If you have a few minutes, go to YouTube and search for:
Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator Video
Apple’s 1988 Future Shock concept Video
You will see Apple’s early ideas for voice input, voice recognition, touch screens, gesture recognition, speech to text and a host of other technologies.
And if you want to view something a little more humorous, try typing in ‘macintosh jr snl’ in your favorite web search. One of the many parodies done by the good folks at Saturday Night Live.
@Priused
As I stated, “In fact, much of what he predicts will come about; only sooner than he has been told.
I got a gesture for ya you fester mother f@&#*@
Isn’t that rich! Ballmer states what Apple brought to the masses; for that Microsoft directly used.
Then states that they will go beyound it. Well, I can only say that Apple must have some sick GUI OR NUI coming of the drawing board.
And the chum may be what Microsoft will be one day. Food for the fishes.
If Ballmer is predicting Steve Jobs is delivering!
I thought not having a keyboard makes a device “not very good for email”…
What a knob…
M$ is behind everything what real and practical use is concerned… Balmer is just living in the funky illusion of what M$ could ever be capable of.
Vaporeware again!
Bla, bla, bla… Talks and more empty talks based on laboratory tests the crowd will probably never see as real objects in the real world.
C’mon Balmy, wake up: M$ is doomed and that’s it!
Microsoft, as usual, skates to where the puck was 3 years ago.
I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year clueless PC manufacturers, egged on by Microsoft, caused one of the worst fiascos in tech history when they tried giving their full-sized computers an interface meant for a 2.5 inch by 4.5 inch pocket phone.
Well…. Ballmer is not referring to multi-touch per se here as that is still a GUI of sorts. He is really speaking of air gestures, facial/body recognition, voice control–or NUI’s. A natural user interface does not use a graphic representation and abstraction to facilitate control and interaction. A more intuitive approach of natural interface elements with less abstraction between the user and the method of control has not been perfected yet and has really not even been attempted. Ballmer is a tool and he is trying to sour the grapevine of what he predicts will be a multi-touch GUI on the Apple slate device, but he is not trying to me too or me first multi-touch here. However, he (and many) might be wrong about how Apple intends the user to interface with the new device though. They could be using facial recognition or eye tracking for instance which is a NUI. If Ballmer is worried about that he could be guilty of mefirsting the slate, but I don’t think he thinks that. But we will see. I can easily imagine the Apple presentation as such: Desktop = remote control mechanisms, iPhone = One handed direct control (multitouch). iSlate = ???
2 handed indirect control, laptop/desktop/phone hybrid methods.
Well, would you expect Monkey Boy to worry about Gorilla Arm?
Monkey Brain.
@ Spark
Shut up! Stop giving Micro$oft any ideas to put an intelligent life form in the CEO seat. : )
Ballmer = Apple’s best ally!
Between Ballmer and the media I’m not sure which one scares me more.
Ballmer for his total lack of technology vision and the repeating of the most obvious hype that has been told to him as the future.
The Media for eating up Ballmer’s dweeb dribble like the candy that falls from the easter bunnies ass.
I think it’s going to have to be the media.
Ballmer is clown with shrimp sauce on his shirt that tosses chairs when he is peeved. The Media just soaks up and buys into what ever some self proclaimed expert who is nothing but a techno weeny dweeb is telling them because they don’t or don’t care to have a thought on their own. An just because the company is named Google or Microsoft doesn’t mean that the dweeb of a company executive has a clue about technology, current or future. Of course I also found that 99% of all Tech reporters are also techno weeny dweeb without a clue on technologies’ future, or even it’s resent past.
Given that the keyboard was developed as part of a typewriter starting about 1800, it is time for something new. On the other hand, I often write with a fountain pen…
The real breakthrough will be a combination of devices and software working synergistically. Speech recognition combined with keys for control might work nicely.
Ballmers thoughts…… “Project Nedal ….. will save us all.”
Just a thought this morning.
en
Sorry… 🙁 but I cannot help it.
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“In the year 2525, I’m wondering if man”…….. is still going to be stuck using products by Microsoft….
Just a thought,
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