Letter to a future friend

I like to develop successively faster methods for typing text on different portable devices, as advancing technology allows. It’s been a long term hobby of mine — and of others as well.

Yet as speech-to-text gets progressively better, and as SmartGlasses begin to replace SmartPhones in the next few years, the entire issue might become moot. Typing on a keyboard may eventually go the way of the quill pen.

I would find that to be sad, because I really like to write by typing. In fact, I am typing this on my MacBook keyboard right now, and the feeling is immensely satisfying.

Then again, even when we get to those direct-brain interfaces (scary thought), everything doesn’t need to be up to date. I’m sure nobody will object if, every once in a while, I write a letter to a future friend with a good old fashioned quill pen.

3 thoughts on “Letter to a future friend”

  1. Speaking is very linear. We correct mistakes by inserting more words to clarify or look for the listener’s facial cues that suggests whether we were understood despite our syntactic gaff or poor word choice.

    When I type, I’m constantly revising. I’ve never been the type who can draft first and edit later. Even the simplest email message (or blog comment) gets revised in a manner that prohibits counting “revisions” or “edits.”

    I have a hard time imagining how I would be able to adapt my random access writing pattern to an interface that (would seem to) require mostly linear access, whether it’s text to speech or a direct tap into my stream of consciousness.

  2. Yet why should we need to choose? Why can’t we simply speak when we want to be linear, and type when we want to revise and edit? In an ideal interface, the two modes would simply mesh seamlessly together.

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