Сборник материалов международной научной конференции студентов, магистрантов, аспирантов

С.С. Горелик, А.В. Косовец

Республика Беларусь, Брест, БрГТУ

Научный руководитель – Д.В. Новик

COMPUTERS OF THE NEAREST FUTURE

Computers have been around for more than half a century, and yet the way most people interact with them hasn’t changed much. The keyboards we use evolved from typewriters, a technology that dates back almost 150 years. Douglas Carl Engelbert demonstrated a device that we'd later call a computer mouse back in 1968. Even the graphical user interface (GUI) has been around for a while – the first one to gain popularity in the consumer market was on the Macintosh in 1984. Considering the fact that computers are far more powerful today than they were 50 years ago, it’s surprising that our basic interfaces haven’t changed much.

Today, we’re starting to see more dramatic departures from the keyboard-and-mouse interface configuration. Touchscreen devices like smartphones and tablet computers have introduced this technology – which has been around for more than a decade – to a wider audience. We’re also making smaller computers, which necessitates new approaches to user interfaces. You wouldn’t want a full-sized keyboard attached to your smartphone – it would ruin the experience.

Touchscreens have introduced new techniques for computer navigation. Early touchscreens could only detect a single point of contact – if you tried touching a display with more than one finger, it couldn't follow your movements. But today, you can find multitouch screens in dozens of computer devices. Engineers have taken advantage of this technology to develop gesture navigation. Users can execute specific commands with predetermined gestures. For example, several touchscreen devices like the Apple iPhone allow you to zoom in on a photo by placing two fingers on the screen and drawing them apart. Pinching your fingers together will zoom out on the photo.

The University of Tokyo’s Khronos Projector experiment combines a touch interface with new methods of navigating prerecorded video. The system consists of a projector and camera mounted behind a flexible screen. The projector displays images on the screen while the camera detects changes in the screen’s tension. A user can push against the screen to affect prerecorded video-speeding a section of the video up or slowing it down while the rest of the picture remains unaffected.

Two thousand years later, the technology changed but the dialogue remains the same. Facebook, smartphones, and video games are all supposedly bad for us: damaging our concentration, or leading to falling grades.

While there’s no doubt that information technology can have its downsides for our day-to-day behaviour, there is very little evidence that computers are damaging our brains – any more than writing made us more forgetful. In fact, computers might just make us a bit smarter.

This potential for technology to enhance the mind was explored by Google’s vice-president of research Alfred Spector at the World-Changing Ideas Summit in New York. He outlined the ways that even simple apps could improve the way we think and learn. “Since I was a freshman in college, almost every piece of information technology is a million times better than when I started”, he said. “And there are reasons to believe that this will affect education”.

For some enthusiastic learners, the revolution has already started: the last few years have seen a rapid rise in apps that aim to help us effortlessly absorb new material. Duolingo – an app that teaches foreign languages through playful games – already has around 40 million users, while programs like Cerego and Memrise aim to teach more general subjects, based on a growing understanding of the way the brain learns and forgets information.  

But these could just be the tip of the iceberg, said Spector – if the technology will follow three important principles. Firstly, he points to research showing that even average students can reach the top 2% of a class if they have a personal tutor that can adapt their teaching methods to the student’s style of thinking and learning. “If it were the case that technology could become custom tutors, then it’s possible to imagine enormous improvements in educational attainment”, said Spector.

In fact, Memrise and Cerego already use this strategy to a certain extent – by tracking patterns in the ways they remember and forget the information – but more sophisticated approaches may emerge with time. In other words, we may all be able to enjoy the advantages that were once only available to the richest children.

Spector also pointed out that designers had already mastered the way to create immersive, compelling environments – through video games – that could take the boredom out of studying. “We have user interfaces that are so exciting that people play video games for hours and hours a day, and they could be educated by them”. Besides adding interest, Daphne Bavelier at the University of Rochester, New York, says that by effortlessly focusing our attention, immersive environments can also improve “perceptual learning” – the kind of memory that allows you to learn a musical instrument, or a foreign language, and which normally shuts down after childhood.

Finally, Spector says that social networks could be used to increase the interaction between students. “I learnt as much from fellow students as we do from the faculty”, he told the WCIS audience. Indeed, part of the popularity of apps like Memrise is the fact that users can share their experiences.

Spector readily admits that all of this might sound a bit pie-in-the-sky at the moment, and may only attract the more dedicated users, but the obvious enthusiasm with which people are devouring apps like Duolingo suggests there is a genuine interest. “It may be enough to get this started”, he says. He thinks much of the necessary technology is already there – it just needs to be packaged in a more attractive way.

If so, he believes it could fundamentally change our society – perhaps even abolishing the need for schools. “In the past it seemed you had to go to a school to get formal education – there was no choice but to go to isolated places to be educated, but now we don’t have to do that. We may choose to but we don’t have to”. Or perhaps universities will cut down the number of years you spend on campus – allowing you to finish your education with distance learning. And since it means that people aren’t all taught in one class – but offers a more personal approach – it may mean that future students can pick and choose the bits that are most appealing while avoiding the more tedious parts of their subject.

1. 
   Industrial equipment resource [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/humans-interface-with-computers.html. – Date of access: 15.03.2015.
   
2. 
   Computer [Electronic resource] // Wikipedia. – Mode of access: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer. – Date of access: 15.03.2015.
   

В статье раскрывается история развития компьютеров, эволюция их интерфейса, гаджетов, приложений, важность компьютеров в повседневной жизни. Авторы анализируют влияние компьютеров на жизнь человека, а также прогнозируют развитие компьютеров, их новые возможности и способы их применения в различных областях.