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Science Fiction Interfaces

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Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#31

Post by Arizhel »

ishtanbul wrote: post #9

There's an overarching theme here of thin neon lines and white text on black background. Its interesting to me that despite the popularity of this in movies as the default "futuristic" computer interface, it rarely seems to make its way into actual software and especially web/app UI. One exception i can think of is the Bloomberg terminal. I find this odd because its easier on the eyes and looks better. I would honest…

It's really a shame, because today's web and app UIs are simply atrocious and horrifically ugly, and not really all that useful either.

Computing was a lot easier on the eyes back in the days of green text on black backgrounds.

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#32

Post by jpindar »

logfromblammo wrote: post #24
inputcoffee wrote: post #17

The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". The second greatest, though, is quite visual: the interface in Minority Report. I wish I could find the interviews with the UI engineers who talked about the influences that went into it.

I am almost certain that I would hate using the Minority Report interface, as it was depicted in the film. If Tom Cruise's character actually had to use that every day, his deltoids would be the size of bowling balls. And I'm sure his manager loves to see exactly what he's doing from 100m away. If you stuck that UI into a pair of VR-AR goggles, and replaced the huge gorilla-arm movements with barely-visible finger tw…

I've had a job that involved pressing buttons and turning knobs on a tall stack of test equipment. It did make my shoulders sore if I had to do that repeatedly for too long. Luckily I was able to hook the equipment up to a computer and automate the repetitive parts.

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#33

Post by lrc »

Arizhel wrote: post #30
inputcoffee wrote: post #17

The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". The second greatest, though, is quite visual: the interface in Minority Report. I wish I could find the interviews with the UI engineers who talked about the influences that went into it.

>The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". No, that was the absolute worst UI in the history of films. Spoken words simply cannot carry remotely as much information as visually-seen images. Haven't you ever heard the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words"? Let me give a modern-day example: at a typical Panera Bread restaurant right now, you can order a s…

The teenager has a job, which is a small but positive increment in the health of your community. For that, I would be willing to endure the (real) risks you mention.

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#34

Post by bhauer »

ishtanbul wrote: post #15
jonkiddy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this doesn't apply to your needs, however OSX/macOS has the ability to "Invert Display Color" and I use it all the time for precisely the use case you described.

some digging around I found Stylish [1] chrome extension which allows you to select dark modes (and others) for many common websites. Unfortunately many of the dark themes are really just dark grey, whereas I really prefer a deep inky black. My pixel xl has an amoled display which makes night modes look stunning because the pixels actually turn off with true black. I used this app [2] to read hacker news and im delig…

A while back I roughed up a dark theme for HN via a greasemonkey userscript, as seen here: http://i.imgur.com/PkwVEOD.png There are obviously some rough edges—no pun intended—such as around the voting buttons.

Dark themes really are just way easier on the eyes. Combining the Windows 10 dark theme, the black theme in Office 2016, Firefox Developer Edition, plus a bunch of dark themes for web sites yields a pretty good overall experience.

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#35

Post by sporkenfang »

lrc wrote: post #33
Arizhel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". No, that was the absolute worst UI in the history of films. Spoken words simply cannot carry remotely as much information as visually-seen images. Haven't you ever heard the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words"? Let me give a modern-day example: at a typical Panera Bread restaurant right now, you can order a s…

The teenager has a job, which is a small but positive increment in the health of your community. For that, I would be willing to endure the (real) risks you mention.

Yeah I'd rather have the teenager (or, actually, since it's been awhile since I saw a fast food clerk under the age of 40, the probable mom of several teenagers) for that reason.

Even though it may be more efficient for the customer to have the touch screen, I don't think service automation is so black and white.

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#36

Post by thesuitonym »

pogo wrote: post #26
__sb__ wrote: post #6

Oh hey I run this, originally I was just collecting the fui designs for reference when trying to make my own as a desktop ( https://github.com/seenaburns/dex-ui ), but since then I've kept it going. My personal favorite is probably still Oblivion http://www.gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX but if these are too over the top science fiction, The Bourne Identity's is pretty fun too http://coleran.com/gallery-category/fui/#the-bou…

This is an incredible and timely resource for me. I'm currently building a spaceship cockpit for my young sons. I'm a former EE, so I've got the blinky LEDs, switches, LCDs, keypads, and other physical UI components covered, but I'd love to add a sophisticated GUI component. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a coder. Do you know if any sci-fi GUIs are available as Android apps for tablets? I have 3 Kindle Fire tablets t…

I set up SquareHome 2 with Minimalistic Text widgets to be kind of a retro-futuristic control panel for my phone. I'll bet with some time and the right icon packs it would make a pretty nice cockpit HUD.

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#37

Post by thesuitonym »

fpgaminer wrote: post #29

I have an almost fetish for retro and retro sci-fi interfaces. I stumbled into this really gorgeous, simplistic terminal like design. I was so inspired by it I decided to re-create the style in HTML+CSS. Once I did that I had another spark, and decided to make it a working faux terminal. And then I had the idea that maybe I could turn it into a small little game. You discover this machine, like you dialed into it ran…

Have you played CAPSULE[1]? It sounds almost exactly like what you just described, and was one of my favorite games of the year.

[1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/303940/CAPSULE/

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#38

Post by inputcoffee »

Arizhel wrote: post #30
inputcoffee wrote: post #17

The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". The second greatest, though, is quite visual: the interface in Minority Report. I wish I could find the interviews with the UI engineers who talked about the influences that went into it.

>The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". No, that was the absolute worst UI in the history of films. Spoken words simply cannot carry remotely as much information as visually-seen images. Haven't you ever heard the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words"? Let me give a modern-day example: at a typical Panera Bread restaurant right now, you can order a s…

There are a few benefits to the Her interface:

1. Your hands are free to read a novel

2. You don't have to carry a screen around

3. Even if there is a small, finite set of options that you can present on a screen, you should still be able to select them verbally.

4. If you want to ask a question, or ask for a suggestion, you should be able to do so free form.

5. If "Her" knows your preferences and allergies, she can just suggest the cluster of good ones.

6. Once you know what you want, you can just tell her "the usual"

7. In the "Her" interface, the teenager will never misspeak, any more than the screen will show you the wrong picture or misunderstand your touch.

8. If there is a screen or board present, the Her interface should be able to see it as well, and sort of work with you to make a selection. <- I know some indecisive people who would love this, and their loved ones would love this even more.

Re: Science Fiction Interfaces

#39

Post by XorNot »

inputcoffee wrote: post #38
Arizhel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her". No, that was the absolute worst UI in the history of films. Spoken words simply cannot carry remotely as much information as visually-seen images. Haven't you ever heard the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words"? Let me give a modern-day example: at a typical Panera Bread restaurant right now, you can order a s…

There are a few benefits to the Her interface: 1. Your hands are free to read a novel 2. You don't have to carry a screen around 3. Even if there is a small, finite set of options that you can present on a screen, you should still be able to select them verbally. 4. If you want to ask a question, or ask for a suggestion, you should be able to do so free form. 5. If "Her" knows your preferences and allergies, she can…

The Her interface like all fictional voice interfaces benefits from the actors reading from a script.

Try dictating a simple email sometime. The best voice recognition in the world won't solve the problem that it's very hard to do (also, that movie utterly left out important corrollaries like all the people everywhere he was would have been speaking in weird monosyllabic commands and leaking personal information in public). As I write this in a hotel foyer, I'm very glad for my predictive keyboard.

The Her interface looks good only because its in a scripted movie. Because its the Wish-fulfillment interface in the plot.

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