I have a little secret. I have grown to hate computers. I hate that most of the activities in my life now take place confined to a screen, keyboard and mouse interacting with 25 year old visual metaphors. I miss working in a darkroom, or dipping a pen in ink.

All day is spent clutching a mouse and pecking at keys. The tactile experience is completely impoverished and everything is so cramped and confined. It’s impossible to stretch out even with a couple of big monitors.

I used to edit papers by printing them out on a continuous strip of old fanfold computer paper and then laying the whole thing out on a big table. It made it so easy to reorganize things. I could draw arrows between paragraphs multiple pages from another as I figured out how to turn a rough draft into a well organized paper. Of course then I had to enter my changes into the computer, but it wasn’t that bad, and it actually helped having all the changes sketched out before I started committing them.

I actually broke out my old sketchbook and bought a set of brush pens to try and get away from the computer. It felt good, but as much as I hate the experience, I was drawn back to my resting place in front of the computer.

Which is all background for why I find this demo by Jeff Han at TED so cool. It’s a big touch sensitive display that responds to multiple touches, which lets you interact with things in a pretty complicated way. Check it out.

I want one, a really big one and I want it last week.

thanks to Chasjr3 & sarahliz for the link.