Doing things faster on computers

So first we've got mouse gestures, opera has this but it isn't enabled by default. Quite useful I'd say.

I then looked into normal Windows gestures for the GUI environment and sure enough I found a good free utility called gMote (highsign alternative). Again, this is quite useful.

Windows 7 has speech recognition so one could record ones voice saying something like 'open notepad' and not have to bother moving their mouse. I haven't tested it yet but I've heard it isn't too bad.

So, here's what I'm thinking - with my experience with OSX, there's a utility called automator which is a really cool app that lets you automate pretty much everything in high detail.

Despite speech recognition being slow, imagine being able to record say, over 100 commands in an audio application linked together with an application like automator so that whatever you say - it does. Some examples:

"Add reverb"

"Remove delay and add 50Hz notch filter"

These are quite primitive but imagine if the speech utility could go a step further and be able to work out:

"Add reverb, 30 percent dry."

"Insert new track, create midi loop between bars one and two"

I reckon there's some room for experimentation here and regardless if this is a stupid idea or too complex to make, you should check out the native windows gesture app because I'm finding it useful already.

All well and good.

But tell me more about your sig?

Interesting title for a thread about mouse gestures and speech recognition applications. Keyboard shortcuts trump mouse gestures any day of the week, especially when laptop touchpads are involved, and it would take me longer to say 'open Mousepad' than to press Ctrl+Super+m, or to manually drag a window to the centre of the desktop than to press Alt+Super+c. Now, an interface directly with the brain would be interesting, where ones thoughts trigger shortcuts, so we only need think of Mousepad opening, or the focused window moving to the centre of the desktop, and it does. However, without great mental control, this system could end up doing more harm than good.

The second half of your idea is interesting. As far as I understand it, this is basically the sort of thing that goes on on Star Trek: 'Computer, decrease ambient light by 50%,' and all that.

I've read into the brain interface and although it is coming on well, and better, less unobtrusive methods are used (scalp sensoring) it still takes a lot of practise (though still amazing). However, right now I honestly don't think it would be entirely impossible to do the kind of chained-commands. You'd have typical parameters, so if you say reverb exc (exclusive) it would then be better at deciphering what commands will follow instead of potenially getting them mixed up with similar ones. So following reverb exc, you could then say type-hall.

brain interfaces are so 2011

Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance, stop. Move in, stop. Pull out, track right, stop. Center in, pull back. Stop. Track 45 right. Stop. Center and stop. Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back. Wait a minute, go right, stop. Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop. Enhance 15 to 23. Give me a hard copy right there.