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    463 points bookofjoe | 13 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    freedomben ◴[] No.45129444[source]
    Can't help but think of the Star Trek TOS episode where Kirk is accused of murder and they find the "murder victim" in the ship by identifying and isolating heart beats until they discover he must still be aboard. It's been almost 60 years since the episode came out, but still sorry if that's a spoiler
    replies(3): >>45130422 #>>45131788 #>>45133188 #
    wrs ◴[] No.45130422[source]
    Classic Star Trek (speaking as a fan). They can scan an entire planet to find a lost crew member, but can’t tell how many people are on their own ship. And they have universal audio surveillance on the ship but still have to use wall intercoms.
    replies(4): >>45131153 #>>45131576 #>>45132363 #>>45132400 #
    1. Cthulhu_ ◴[] No.45131576[source]
    The Star Trek series require a lot of suspension of disbelief, especially since in the years after it came out real life technology surpassed the stuff depicted in there. Like, in TNG people walking around with glorified e-readers but having to go to the big computer or to ask Alexa things instead of just tapping on their screens.

    At least they got OLED style touch screens, and for a while it looked like everything would go that way but at least in cars some are going back to physical buttons.

    replies(6): >>45131922 #>>45132194 #>>45132573 #>>45133448 #>>45139910 #>>45141159 #
    2. eurleif ◴[] No.45131922[source]
    One thing that I feel actually became more believable with new technology is the plot device where only one character can perform a certain task, but then all they really do is tell the computer to do it. For example, in Voyager, they make a big deal about how Harry Kim is the only one who's able to make complex holograms. That originally seemed unrealistic; but now, with the amount of work some people put into prompt engineering for LLMs, it actually seems kind of plausible.
    3. lo_zamoyski ◴[] No.45132194[source]
    > At least they got OLED style touch screens, and for a while it looked like everything would go that way but at least in cars some are going back to physical buttons.

    On that note, physical buttons are tactile and easier to navigate while driving and thus safer. You don't have to take your eyes off the road and worry about a fussy touchscreen registering your tap. You just feel around for the control and manipulate it.

    The appeal of a touchscreen is that you can change the interface. It can assume a wide range of control panels, which, in a car, isn't always useful. For functions you need immediately, you can't beat a fixed physical widget.

    Now, what would be interesting is a surface whose physical texture and physical controls could be dynamically changed and reconfigured. So, a flat surface becomes a series of buttons, and then maybe a rotating knob in the next. Perhaps tactile holograms. I don't think something like this could beat physical controls for reliable and lasting function either, however.

    replies(1): >>45132530 #
    4. NortySpock ◴[] No.45132530[source]
    https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/clickable-buttons-that-r...

    (2023)

    https://www.engadget.com/2015-09-23-geltouch.html

    (2015)

    replies(1): >>45141014 #
    5. ck2 ◴[] No.45132573[source]
    I mean, they have GRAVITY PLATING

    We could many centuries from now have "warp drive" but GRAVITY PLATING is completely implausible

    Yet it makes every episode of each ST series watchable so we just accept "the future"

    replies(3): >>45133268 #>>45134272 #>>45139948 #
    6. lazide ◴[] No.45133268[source]
    They invented the transporter because they didn’t have the special effects budget to handle landing a ‘spacecraft’ each time on the planet. Gravity plating is pretty mellow hah
    7. lovemenot ◴[] No.45133448[source]
    In the new TV series Alien Earth, the low resolution CRT monitors and clunky keyboards aboard interstellar spacecraft really stand out. Presumably it's an homage to the 80s' movies.
    replies(1): >>45135189 #
    8. gpm ◴[] No.45134272[source]
    Why is something that applies a roughly uniform downwards force to things in an area above it (or maybe between two plates of it?) implausible.

    It doesn't come with nearly the same level of implausibility (causality problems) that FTL does IMHO.

    9. AngryData ◴[] No.45135189[source]
    Mostly im sure, but using older and simpler technology does have benefits when it is going to be used on ships traveling for decades at a time through space. Seemingly the mass of ships in the Alien universe doesn't seem to matter too much so chunky old tech that is easier to repair and hopefully more robust could make ships both cheaper and more likely to return from the apparently not uncommon ship disasters.
    10. pndy ◴[] No.45139910[source]
    > Like, in TNG people walking around with glorified e-readers but having to go to the big computer or to ask Alexa things instead of just tapping on their screens.

    PADD was still futuristic enough at that time but what they didn't predict behind scenes was multitasking in software. Characters in old series were seen working on multiple devices like on multi-page documents. Tho, you can always say that it was just a gimmick to show character being really busy.

    Some 30 years ago there was this Australian tv show for kids created where by sheer luck a damaged satellite fixed itself and let group of random kids around the world magically have a Zoom-like meetings for education and... making art thieves lives miserable. Prop department utilized still new at that time Sharp OZ-7000 (one of first such devices, before even PDA was coined) as communication device equipped with small colored LCD and weird looking "gem" camera. Back then that was a futuristic fantasy that seem impossible. And here we are, with smartphones that can make video calls at ease by Internet for last few years.

    11. pndy ◴[] No.45139948[source]
    At least they mention it. Unlike in both old and new Battlestar Galactica. Ships there are just able to keep people walking like on a planet's surface.
    12. anthk ◴[] No.45141014{3}[source]
    That's bad because you need to remember several layouts at once. While with a physical one you are done with your muscle memory.
    13. WorldMaker ◴[] No.45141159[source]
    > Like, in TNG people walking around with glorified e-readers but having to go to the big computer or to ask Alexa things instead of just tapping on their screens.

    People do that in real life all the time even with the ability to do everything on one handheld device today. People pick up preferences for using "apps" on specific devices, or have multi-tasking use cases where flowing across devices feels nice or makes the most sense.

    For instance: Using an iPad to read a kitchen recipe and calling to Alexa or Siri on a nearby Echo or HomePod to set a kitchen timer while watching a show on a kitchen screen, say powered by an Apple TV. The iPad could picture-in-picture the show and track the timer and show the recipe all at the same time, but that's not the experience everyone wants. It's not even the experience that Apple wants to sell to people. If you've got an iPad and HomePod in the same room and call for Siri, the software is built to prefer the HomePod and its smarter array of microphones to listen for what comes next. It's better, more dedicated hardware to help the software deliver a better experience.

    It's great that one device can do everything, but we rarely want to use one device to do everything when we don't have to. Especially because human memory is contextual and spatial it becomes easier to remember where we "left" things if they are on different devices in different places.

    Especially in TNG it feels like a lot of the screens are designed for exactly that: the screens can change to other displays but most often don't because they are very specifically tailored to each specific place they are. That seems somewhat intentionally designed to help the human memory and better muscle memory, knowing what we knew in the 90s and knowing what we know today. "I don't want to lose my place in this recipe just to set a timer or to catch up on TV" is a human problem and TNG showing "I don't want to lose my place on this PADD so I'll ask the computer to do something or walk to engineering to touch a specific dedicated panel that my fingers have already memorized" is maybe just a reflection that in Star Trek's future humans are still, you know, human.