I got a good laugh at the prediction in the title here, but thought I'd link the survey here to see what others thought:

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/cnet/2008...38631012289476

ok, quoting the relevant part of the study in full:

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Talk and touch are common technology interfaces.

People have adjusted to hearing individuals dictating information in public to their computing devices. In addition “haptic” technologies based on touch feedback have been fully developed, so, for instance, a small handheld Internet appliance allows you to display and use a full-size virtual keyboard on any flat surface for those moments when you would prefer not to talk aloud to your networked computer. It is common to see people “air-typing” as they interface with the projection of a networked keyboard visible only to them.

64% of the experts "mostly agree"

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Two-thirds say yes, one-third no. It's an interesting prediction: not that typing would vanish but rather haptic displays would be good enough for virtual keyboards.

I would also 64% agree with this prediction.

the question is, what hides in the "haptics" buzzword?

is it simply vibrating screens/devices, or are we talking something like raised keys so that one can feel the borders between them?

as for airtyping, nah. i would be more interested in something like a sign-language and a sensor glove so that one could have the hand hanging down and simply spell out the text by moving the fingers in set patterns...

Speech recognition for the win!

The only speech I hurl at my computers would not benefit by recognition by them.

The level of "noise" from using speech as a primary input method in public places would not work. Sorry, keyboards will stick around (hard, virtual, and otherwise).

Two words:

Mind Reading

The first phone I had that had speech recognition "capability" for accessing the phone book was a Sony-Ericsson. Awful, awful. Even with a headset.

Now, with my LG Shine and a Plantronics Navigator, I can throw "Call Home" or "Call Wife" at it with virtually any inflection I want, in the car, walking down the street, in the mall. >90% positive recognition. And the really nice thing is: It asks for confirmation ("Did you mean ...?") with a "Yes" response on my part. If it gets it wrong, it goes back and looks for another match.

But it gets it right almost every time.

The m5/N9xx/RX51 should be able to do that, as well.

Edit: Of course, I mean it should be able to do more than recognize a name/number in a phone book. I understand the software in the Shine is optimized for that.