The Computer of the Twenty-Third Century: Real-World HCI Based on Star Trek

WORKING

Leitner, Gerhard, and John N. A. Brown. "The Computer of the Twenty-Third Century: Real-World HCI Based on Star Trek." In Stefan Rabitsch, Martin Gabriel, Wilfried Elmenreich, and John N.A. Brown, editors. Set Phasers to Teach! Star Trek in Research and Teaching. New York City: Springer, 2018: 51-61.

Reviewed by Bruce Lindsley Rockwood, SFRA Review 50.1 (Winter 2020), our source and whom we quote below.[1][2]

“The Computer of the Twenty-Third Century: Real-World HCI Based on Star Trek,” by Gerhard Leitner and John N. A. Brown (51-61), explores how the Human-Computer Interface (HCI) was portrayed in the original series, how it inspired further developments, and what remains to be done to address reliability, security and privacy concerns, and ease of use, concluding “despite the many examples of advanced HCI that already exist in the home, we are still very far from the twenty-third century. . . [...] It is now possible to have reliable and secure voice-based interaction that seems natural and intuitive to the user, provided designers and developers are willing to take the time needed to build it” (60). In the context of the challenge to aircraft safety posed by the recent crashes of the Boeing 737 Max attributed at least in part to software updates,[3] loss of pilot control over aircraft computer systems, and training failures,[4] this essay is a particularly interesting contribution to the collection.

The essay is relevant for the wiki for a quite literal human/cybernetic interface.

RDE, finishing, 22Oct21