The trend is clear: Digital is breaking free. The tethered desktop is old thinking; interactivity is everywhere now. At SXSW Interactive 2010 we saw this trend continue; we observed a growing ecosystem of screens.
In the future, devices will be ubiquitous. The "phone" as we know it will take on a myriad of functions. Computers as we know them will be as hard to find as a VHS player is today. This trend is already starting. As David Seigel points out, the market for netbooks is growing at 40% per quarter while notebooks have dipped to 20%. Screens will be in your pocket, on your wrist, on your car dashboard, on your lap, on your wall... They will connect to the web, where everything will take place.
The iPad is the latest screen to enter the market, so it was a hot topic of discussion at SXSW. Location based services could become a lot more immersive, as was discussed during Maps 2010: How iPad Impacts the LBS Market. Gowalla will be one of the first location services to support the device. The general consensus is that the iPad will become great for multimedia consumption, and possibly breath life into the future of magazines. The tablet will bring new opportunity to the ecosystem of screens.
To address this coming reality and save us all from Carpal Tunnel, gesture controlled interfaces are being developed. These new interaction paradigms will minimize friction between user and screen. We see this trend in Apple's products (both iPad and Magic Mouse). Microsoft's Natal and Surface are other examples. These platforms invite more natural interaction and build off of pre-existing muscle memory.
While the mainstream market isn't yet ready to relinquish their keyboards, the touchscreen is a step in the right direction. We are getting used to swiping and tapping, not hunting and pecking. Frog Design's Fabio Sergio says that like the iPhone before it, the iPad is helping build a touchfrastructure, meaning that the touchscreen will soon become relied upon not as a product, but as an underlying infrastructure.
In 'How The Tablet Will Change The World', Gary Wolf channeled Marshall McLuhan, imagining what the media theorist would have to say about the new medium.
"The thin, single pane of glass that comprises the interface is just a window onto the world, an edgeless frame. Essentially, there is no interface, any more than a person's fingertips are an interface. The long story of humanism comes to an end when we return, futuristically, to doing everything by hand."
These "edgeless frames" will soon be everywhere. Mark Hamblin, developer of the original iPhone touchscreen, is so bullish on his creation that he started a company called Touch Revolution. With it, he hopes to slap Android enabled touchscreens onto anything with a power cord. This will make it easier to control anything from a smart microwave to the washing machine with our fingertips.
Not only will we interact with single screens, but we will manipulate screens to interact with each other. Mobile to digital outdoor is becoming everyday for marketers, but it goes beyond this. Phones are being designed as remote controls. During the panel 'Beyond the Desktop: Embracing New Interaction Paradigms,' David Merrill discussed Siftables, cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them—piling, grouping, sorting—to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provide a new platform for 'chop stick style' interaction, where content can be grabbed and transferred between screens. Poker Surface and iPad-iPhone group gaming concepts provide additional illustrations.
For those in media, the opportunity for transmedia storytelling is endless. These screens will be part of our lives, therefore brands will need to utilize them in creative ways. There were several panels at SXSW on transmedia and the possibilities that the iPad could open up. One panel discussed the ever evolving space in our homes, The Future of the Living Room. Just thinking about how devices like the iPad could be used for social viewing is something that brands like MTV have already considered. How we use these tools and screens to connect and to share is something we need to think about.