When we consider all we have to do with our two hands, using one of them to hold our smart device is seriously inefficient. It seems inevitable to me that before long better ways to carry and operate our devices will emerge. Those who hear my rants on a daily basis know I’ve been muttering about this for quite a while. I backed the Pebble Watch on Kickstarter, because keeping my phone in my pocket and checking messages on my wrist made sense. I’m waiting for Pebble to ship me my watch, and in the meantime I see that Apple is now thought to be working on its own product in what is now being referred to as the “wearable space.” And, of course, there is the commercial availability of Google Glass within a year or so.

This makes me think new methods of input and control that make more sense with wearable devices are surely going to evolve. And with that change is likely to come a new vocabulary of gestures and vocalizations to make interacting with and controlling our devices more efficient than by tapping a screen or speaking out loud in natural language.

Scrolling by small head gestures or eye movements, commanding with subvocal or inaudible utterances, texting a message in the air with fingermotions, like playing air guitar; these are all possibilities. Picture a crowd of people all doing that as they wait in a station or stroll down the avenue, gesticulating, moving their arms and fingers in signs, humming and growling and shaking their heads as if they’re all dancing. Hey, I kind of like it.