Qwiki, Pulse, and the ultimate user interface

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

According to Qwiki, The future of the internet is all about transforming data consumption and the increasingly difficult information overload problem into a streamlined, multimedia, "information experience that you can watch" I think they really have a potentially game changing platform here, but where is it all going? What is the future of the information experience? Or better yet, what is the future of the web oriented operating system as a whole?

What it all boils down too is the convergence of some key innovative technologies. imagine Pulse RSS feed reader, Facebook, personalized recommendation engines, Google, IBM Watson, NELL (Never Ending Language Learning system), and of course Qwiki all rolled into one intuitive Augmented reality Heads up display interface, which you can manipulate via voice recognition and natural gestures. I know its alot to swallow but heres some videos to help you wash it down.






QPC - Articulated Naturality Web from Justin Montgomery on Vimeo.

In this futuristic information experience scenario The front end interface is a fusion of mainly Pulse and Qwiki. Meanwhile a combination of algorithms from Google, NELL and IBM WATSON all run in the back end. All you have to do is simply scroll through your personal feed of recommended content, just like in pulse. Once you make a selection from the feed, an interactive Qwiki is generated from the content on the fly. If on the off chance you have a query about something that has not already been recommended in your personalized feed, you can simply speak or type your query into the omnibox at the top just as you would in a natural conversation with a friend. The computer would then formulate a general Qwiki summary, curated from the most relevant, recent, and authoritative sources. In most cases the automated answer it returned would be the most accurate due to the clever algorithims from google, watson, and NELL running in the back end that understand semantics and natural language. But if you still wanted more information a list of related results would always be available.

From there, you could continue to jump around through related hyperlinks, back through your feed history, or forwards through your feed que. The anatomy of the feed is arranged like google reader play so that the item you are currently viewing is in the middle, with the next four upcoming items displayed on the left (feed que), and the most recently viewed items displayed on the right (feed history). By scrolling through your feed que you are also pushing what you've read to the opposite side of the middle box and visca-versa. If you want to view the entire conversation thread associated with the item you are currently viewing simply scroll vertically through the full size visualization panel just above the feed. Everything updates in real time and there are various options that allow you to interact with the content.

Now imagine that, instead of this software being run on typical hardware like phones, tablets, desktops etc., It all gets displayed via an augmented reality contact lens, which you can manipulate via gestures and voice recognition. So far what I have described is only the flat view of the Information experience but with augmented reality everything can be more 3-dimensional and immersive just like in the Articulated Naturality demo. For instance, lets say you're on vacation and walking around in paris. After scanning your personalized news feed for awhile, which appears to be floating directly in front of you, you realize your hungry. before you even begin to ask about nearby restaurants a notification pops up in your feed que. As soon as you view the item, which turns out to be an impeccable restaurant recommendation, you notice that the corresponding cafe currently being described in your Qwiki heads up display has also been highlighted in the background along with other contextually relevant information based on your interests, immediate location, and time of day.

This hyper intuitive user interface, layered with pervasive social media capabilities would be the ideal way to experience information and the internet as a whole. We are witnessing the dawn of the intelligent assistant. The pieces of the puzzle are already here or beginning to emerge. Now all we have to do is put them together.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/09/nell-computer-language-carnegie-tctv/