So are we done here then? It was just getting good!

Still need killer app.

It's easy, and fun, to imagine the possibilities, and they quickly permutate in to...whatever you care to impose on them.

But...it's like the first time I got a cable modem instead of analog phone squealers, or the first time I seen some HD signals on an HDTV, the first time a 3-d FPS surpassed a 2-d sprite FPS for beauty, the first time you got a cell phone and found it useful, or the first time you use a computer with two screens, or MP3\digital thingies instead of tape.

You can't switch back. Or, you can, but, who would?

So there must be something for the integrated reality that is like that, something you'd find so darned useful and be unable to replicate in any other way, that you'd never switch back to external screens.

Something so awesome you could get over the hump of ubiquity and insure "everybody" would have one, or at least want one.


Still trying to think of what it could be. Something that people would come to depend on for their lifestyles. Like we depend on computers+broadband+internet.


Games? Maybe, sure, people like games, but not everybody likes games, and folks can certainly get by without them.

Games might be a great demonstration app, but I don't think they'd push things over the edge in to being common place.

I think that humans crave communication (see: Internet boards, IM, Txt'ing, cells, email, pages, etc) so if it can be used for something communication related....in a way that can't be done with other tech mediums....that's what it'll be.

Maybe? What else might do it?

SEX

Immersive, not virtual, you perv.

Something you can do while wandering around in the world. Not something you can do home alone.

On the other hand. Sure.

Might make clubs more fun tho, sexy, cartoon people, bump and grind, under neon lights. To paraphrase Cop Shoot Cop.

Porn has always been the early adopter of new tech.

I guess this is Idoru, not SC, but it fits better in this thread, given the way it's drifted.

Immersive VR goggs? No.

Where the FUCK are my finger-tip datagloves!?

Killer app? Yes.
Possible currently? Yes.
Cheap enough to mass distribute? Yes.

I think the killer app btw is being able to reconfigure your control surfaces and being able to "type" like you had a keyboard (full sized) without actually having to lug around a full-sized keyboard.

No reason they can't be a bluetooth\whatever accessory, wireless I mean, so you can type on your iPhone, or do a little Writing Something Now from you PDA on the train, instead of hunt-n-peck with the stylus.

Well...*I* think they'd be sweet, sell like hotcakes, and pretty "easy" to engineer from "off the shelf" stuff.

So...could somebody get on that plz?

Doing a keyboard without force feedback would be... tricky. And it would make the user look like a dork. But you never know, maybe it would work.

Sub-vocalization mics and good, accurate word recognition: that, I think, would be a killer texting app. It'd be pretty close to mind reading.

Come to think of it, you could just have the computer translate the sub-vocalization to sounds on the other end and you could have a silent phone conversation. Telepathy, here we come.

Then again, maybe one of the attractions of cell phones is that you can have the thrill of knowing that everyone is hearing about your private life, like you're some kind of celebrity? Never underestimate the perversity of the human mind...

Uh, they *do* have those subvocal cell interfaces. I don't think they are retail, yet, but I've seen DailyTech\Slashdot bits on them. Not for speech-to-text, I should clarify, yet.

And, yes, flippin' great wads of awesome they will be.

As for the tip-gloves, they have membrane keyboards already, most cellphones keyboards are. So there is the tactile feedback of pressing the two membranes together, which would still exist. The membranes would of course wear out...but...hey, look who gets to give the company some more money then!

So I think there would be feedback, but not force feedback. I figured you would just sit there with your hands on your knees....might look a bit like you're tapping along to the beat of your iPod, but not terribly obvious (in my speculative world of tomorrow).

PS:Heh. Actually other people overhearing me is the main thing that keeps me from answering most cell calls in public.