Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 4th Apr 2008 21:51 UTC

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RE: I like the last part of the news ...
by elsewhere on Sat 5th Apr 2008 05:09
in reply to "I like the last part of the news ..."
Being myself a Startrek fan I always found myself fascinated with the idea of "touch where you work" LCARS-type interface. I also know that idea of "MS Surface" is substantially different from LCARS but the analogy between LCARS and "Surface" is - at least in its visual aspect - somehow viable, just like it was between TOS-type communicators and clamshell cellphones.
It's not that far fetched. LCARS was just a visual interface that was contextually linked to whatever the user wanted to accomplish or the station was inteded for. Touch this, touch that, switch to what you want. And it had it's limitations, since most of the "serious" workstations on the Enterprise had "keyboard" panels, too.
IIRC, the tech specs for LCARS were based on the idea that discrete ship functions were relegated to modules that could be linked and built upon for specific user requirements. Combined with the adaptable user interface, it's basically KDE with Plasma, but version 150.1.

edit: forgot to capitalize Enterprise...

Edited 2008-04-05 05:11 UTC
RE[2]: I like the last part of the news ...
by helf on Sat 5th Apr 2008 16:03
in reply to "RE: I like the last part of the news ..."
Member since:
2007-04-12
Being myself a Startrek fan I always found myself fascinated with the idea of "touch where you work" LCARS-type interface. I also know that idea of "MS Surface" is substantially different from LCARS but the analogy between LCARS and "Surface" is - at least in its visual aspect - somehow viable, just like it was between TOS-type communicators and clamshell cellphones.