Natural computing is the next step in human-computer interaction

This is an excerpt from a contributed article in Information Age by Stephen Lake, Co-Founder and CEO, Thalmic Labs.

Judging by the investments made in wearable technologies over the last couple of years — Google leading a massive $542 million round into Magic Leap and Facebook buying Oculus Rift for a staggering $2 billion — it would appear that some of the tech world’s most forward-thinking minds are staking at least part of their fortunes on a significant change in the way that we interact with technology.

Anyone with a Fitbit or Apple Watch would tell you that there has been a transition in technology that we wear rather than technology that we carry. And yet, despite these headline-grabbing investments, the adoption of wearables has been slower than was originally predicted.

In part, this is because wearables today tend to carry out just one individual task well, whether that’s counting the number of steps we take or monitoring our heart rate. Even if one device can do two things well, it is still limited, still working in a silo, and still proving a distraction in our everyday lives.

Wearable technology is only at the very beginning of what will be a massive shift in the way we interact with technology. Because of this, we feel as though technology is taking over our lives, but in truth we are still at the first stage of connecting computers with ourselves.

Read more about wearables and the next steps in human-computer interaction.