14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is one of the companies that are investing in digital assistants, with Cortana frequently getting updates with new features and support for more languages.
So it’s no surprise that the firm believes that digital assistants are actually the future of technology, and old systems, such as the QWERTY keyboard, will soon disappear because they’re already obsolete.
Bots will act like human beings
Dave Coplin, who is Microsoft’s chief envisioning officer and one of the engineers involved in the Cortana project, has told the EveningStandard that new technologies such as voice and gesture recognition will make the traditional keyboard as we know it an outdated product and, sooner or later, everyone will make the switch and give up on it.
“We have these amazing computers that we essentially use like we’re still Victorians. The Qwerty keyboard is a great example of an old design being brought forward to modern day. We’ve not really evolved. We still use this sub-optimal design,” he said.
“We’re looking at technologies now like voice and gesture recognition, and facial tracking that may make the keyboard redundant,” he continued. “We think that computers in the not-too-distant future will be able to understand all of those things and infer on my behalf my intent, meaning and objective that I’m trying to do.”
Furthermore, Coplin has explained that bots, which are already a technology that Microsoft is working on, will become a more important part of our lives, as they can speed up certain activities and help perform tasks that everyone had to perform manually before.
Bots will soon know everything about us, he said like this was a good thing, and will be able to act on our behalf just like a human being without any user input.
While bots and digital assistants are indeed improving these days, it’s hard to believe that the keyboard will go away anytime soon, especially because it continues to be the main input method for so many people.