`The Future of the User Interface

THe desktop hasn't changed very much since the 1980s. Sure there have been a few new widgets and "productivity aids", but if a user of an early version of MacOS or Windows was transported twenty years into the future, I think the response to the latest developments would be "Is that all you've done?"

That could be about to change with some of the new ideas that may be coming our way. There's an interesting collection of video demos that show some pretty funky ideas.

Posted mainly so I don't lose them, but well worth a browse.

An Unearthly Child

Jack said he wanted to watch the very first episode of Doctor Who, so we watched An Unearthly Child. Jack was glued to the screen, though he asked why there were no aliens towards the end.

I hadn't noticed before, but the tone of the first episode is quite similar in tone to Rose, the first of the new series, with Susan's teachers taking on the role of conspiracy theory investigators. Of course, there is a stark difference in the Doctor's attitude to humans. The first doctor had presumably been round the galaxy a couple of times, but this would appear to be his first visit to Earth, and he is deeply mistrustful of humans.