Microsoft tried this, IIRC, but the one thing that’s technologically possible that I desperately need is the SciFi concept of “throwing” content to another device. Like in The Expanse, where you swipe in the direction of a device, and it sends that content to that other device. Swipe toward your friend, the file gets sent. Swipe towards a TV, the content comes up on the TV. Heck, I’d have swipe toward my speakers and play music.
What would we need? Phones already have compasses and GPS, so the vector information is there. We have UPnP, for announcing services; we have geo recording servers like OwnTracks; every smart phone has gesture capability. We’d need a couple standards: adding geo information to UPnP; choosing a fucking universal sharing protocol (instead of the current dozens of niche protocols); and a little UI enhancement. We could have this, but instead we have walled gardens and no broadly supported standards. It’s infuriating.
This is not an engineering limitation; only an engineering problem to solve. My e-ink tablet can, and does, differentiate between three different types of swipes and taps, and it never does something I don’t ask it to.
Make it a 3-finger swipe. Hell, enable a confirmation dialog if you’re that uncertain about your ability to control it.
It’s like being afraid of accidentally running "sudo rm -rf /”, and just as easy to prevent accidents.
Microsoft tried this, IIRC, but the one thing that’s technologically possible that I desperately need is the SciFi concept of “throwing” content to another device. Like in The Expanse, where you swipe in the direction of a device, and it sends that content to that other device. Swipe toward your friend, the file gets sent. Swipe towards a TV, the content comes up on the TV. Heck, I’d have swipe toward my speakers and play music.
What would we need? Phones already have compasses and GPS, so the vector information is there. We have UPnP, for announcing services; we have geo recording servers like OwnTracks; every smart phone has gesture capability. We’d need a couple standards: adding geo information to UPnP; choosing a fucking universal sharing protocol (instead of the current dozens of niche protocols); and a little UI enhancement. We could have this, but instead we have walled gardens and no broadly supported standards. It’s infuriating.
Uh, oops, I meant to scroll within this app, but instead I’ve just sent porn to some girl on the bus
Oops, I meant to scroll up but instead I’ve sent our company’s sales figures to our client sitting in this meeting
This is not an engineering limitation; only an engineering problem to solve. My e-ink tablet can, and does, differentiate between three different types of swipes and taps, and it never does something I don’t ask it to.
Make it a 3-finger swipe. Hell, enable a confirmation dialog if you’re that uncertain about your ability to control it.
It’s like being afraid of accidentally running "sudo rm -rf /”, and just as easy to prevent accidents.
The technology exists, but you can’t share content like that because of “DRM”