Guest author Jonathan Stark is a mobile consultant, Web evangelist and an advisory board member at Mobiquity, a designer of customized mobile computing applications.

Until 2007, "computing" meant sitting down to use a PC with both hands. When smartphones came on the scene, we got used to computing with one hand while standing, walking - even running.

As great as they are, smartphones have a significant limitation: the touchscreen. You have to be able to look at the screen, and have at least one free hand to touch or type. If you're doing anything else - driving, cooking or changing a baby, for example - they're practically useless.

This limitation leaves us disconnected for big chunks of our day, which means that there is a demand for a screen-less mobile device. .

You Talkin' To Me?

How will we interact with these new devices? By talking to them. With Apple's Siri and Google Voice Actions and Voice Search, early versions of voice-controlled devices are already here. And more sophisticated versions are on the way. Yes, voice input is imperfect, but so was the touchscreen before Apple perfected it for the iPhone. 

But it's not just about voice commands. A truly voice-activated device would listen to you 24/7. A phrase like, "I wonder . . .?" or, "Who was . . ?" spurs it to action: with blinding speed it searches the Web or your personal database to find the answer - and whispers it in your ear.

Imagine that your mobile device is proactive. It reminds you to grab an umbrella on a rainy day, or lets you know that a friend is at a nearby cafe and would like company. It learns your habits, your likes and dislikes, and becomes acquainted with your friends and family.

For example, say you favor a certain route to work; your mobile will tell you when there's an accident or construction blocking your way and suggests an alternative. Your best friend's birthday is coming up: your mobile knows that you're both basketball fans. It checks your calendar and that of the home team and finds tickets for an upcoming game. 

Be Prepared

In this new world, designing a compelling mobile app just got a lot more interesting. Make a good smartphone app has never been easy. Now, remove the screen and try it again. Sounds impossible. But there are things developers can do to prepare for the next revolution.

1. Create Smart Content.You no longer know where your content will end up. Some devices support cascading style sheets (CSS), others don't; some render HTML, others won't. The screen-less mobile device is just on the horizon. This level of diversity requires that content be truly device-independent. Your content management system (CMS) should contain metadata describing the content, be free of display information (RTF, CSS, or HTML) and organized by what the content is (article, blog, or tweet, etc.) rather than its context (pages, screens and windows).

2. Build Open APIs. Content and services should be made available via Application Programming Interfaces. Think of these APIs as your core offering. Other departments in your organization, registered third-party developers and even consumers should have access them without requiring ongoing assistance. 

3. Start Small. Smart content and open APIs are both back-end considerations. Once it's time for you to build a front-end, start by designing and building for the most resource-constrained device that exists. It's much easier to scale up from a small mobile experience than it is to shoehorn a big design into a little package. 

When the smartphone market is disrupted by the next revolutionary mobile device, you're don't want to have to start over. The principles outlined above will prepare you in a way that is useful in today's mobile computing environment, and for the inevitable disruption to come.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

I just finished setting up my second Windows 8 computer. The first one, a Lenovo Yoga ultrabook/tablet, has a touchscreen. The second one, a Lenovo desktop tower, is hooked up to a standard Dell flat-panel LCD monitor that I bought a few years ago.

While I installing the last piece of software on my new tower, I read Brian Profitt’s ReadWrite post about the current infatuation with touchscreens (see Hey PC Industry: Stop Being So Damn Touchy-Feely).

But my experiences have convinced me that the ride into the new Windows 8 world is not going to be that bad. And more to the point, the touchscreen interface isn't the biggest issue.

Touch Is Not the Problem

The problem is not that Microsoft is dragging us kicking and screaming into the world of touch interfaces.

The real challenge is more complexity. To a certain extent I see some similar challenges - albeit on a smaller scale - in Apple’s Mac OS X Lion. They both offer too many different ways of accomplishing the same thing.

One of the first things that I do when setting up a Windows computer is to get rid of the free trial subscription to some bloatware security program. Windows Defender is free and has worked well for me. We all know security programs have big enough egos that using two at the same time will cause problems.

Uninstalling a program on Windows requires you to go to the Control Panel. That used to be fairly straight forward on Windows 7 and earlier operating systems. You went to the Start Menu. When I tried setting up my first Windows 8 computer, I had not figured out that you could get to the Control Panel multiple ways. Even once I figured it out, I learned that getting there was context-sensitive - and confusing.

Complexity With Strange Options

If I am on the Windows 8 Start screen with the tiles and I move my mouse or finger to the upper right corner of the screen, the soon-to-be-famous Windows 8 "charms" come out. One is Settings - which you might think would take you directly to the control panel, but it doesn’t. At least not in that context.

When I am using a regular Windows desktop application like Firefox, going to the upper right corner of the screen also reveals the charms. Select Settings here and you will find the Control Panel listed as the number two item on the right of your screen.

Just to make it a little more confusing, if I am running an application like Google’s Chrome in its Windows 8 mode when I do the same thing, the Settings charm that shows up is for Google Chrome - and there is no Control Panel anywhere around. However, if I run Google Chrome in desktop mode, the Setting’s charm that shows up does lead to the control panel.

As I was working on my new tower PC, I also discovered that if you go to the lower left corner of your screen and right click with your mouse, you will get a pop-up menu which has the Control Panel.

It would be far easier have one simple, consistent way to get to the control panel. It does not matter to me if I get to it with the mouse or my fingers. That choice I can handle. Among my current choices I will likely remember going to the lower left corner and right clicking. It makes the most sense to me.

When I first started using Mac OS X Mountain Lion, I had some similar concerns. If I want to open and application, I am not exactly sure why I need Launch Pad, the dock on my screen, recent applications under the Apple menu, the Finder sidebar, and the ability to double click on an application icon. However, I have learned to ignore the ways that don’t work for me.

Learning Curve On Windows 8 Not So Bad

That's slowly happening with Windows 8, as well. When I started working on my first Windows 8 system, I got so frustrated that I finally installed Start8 from Stardock. It gave me back the old Start Menu and let me gradually become accustomed to Windows 8. I did not bother installing Start8 on my second system. I learned enough to not need it. (For more, see Could Restoring The Windows 8 Start Button Fix Everything?)

Having used Windows 8 very successfully with a mouse, I’m not very concerned about being stuck if the touchscreen capability is not there in a system. The Intel Core i5 Windows 8 desktop tower that I bought came with a 1TB hard drive and 8GB of memory and a nice keyboard. The cost before taxes was $499. That is a lot of computer for less than $500. Who cares it if doesn't have a touchscreen?

All-In-One Computers Are Wasteful

I am more worried about all-in-one computers than touch interfaces. I have seen some reports that LCD screens could last for up to 20 years. We all know that even the best of computers become functionally obsolete in three to five years. If you buy an all-in-one computer, your screen is going to outlast your computer by more than a decade.

Our family has purchased seven iMacs since 1998. All have been retired except my iLemon which is just waiting for my new Mac Mini’s arrival to give up the ghost. All the screens were functioning perfectly when we gave up on the computers and recycled them.

When my new MacMini shows up this week it will be hooked up to an Apple 20-inch flat panel Cinema Display that I purchased in December 2004 for close to $1,000. I suspect the old screen will outlast the new MacMini. The iMac I bought in 2010 will be our last all-in-one computer.

Touchscreen Price/Reliability Not A Big Issue

I doubt that touchscreen pricing and reliability are issues that are going to heavily weigh on the success of Windows 8. Touchscreens have proven themselves in some very rugged scenarios and the prices are dropping quickly.

The key point for the Windows 8 user interface isn't worrying about too much dependence on touch vs. the mouse. It's about whether the user interface is simple to use and doesn’t confuse us with too much choice.

So far I am not enthusiastic about the latest releases from either Microsoft or Apple in that regard. Maybe I will go have a look at KDE in the Linux world. It is hard to believe that Linux has come so far that I might be looking at it as relief from Mac OS X or Windows 8, but who knows?

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Sure, Windows 8 - Microsoft's new touchscreen operating system - will run just fine on PCs designed for Windows 7. But you won't be able to take advantage of the new touch capabilities the OS enables unless you scrap your existing PC and upgrade to a new computer.

Or maybe not.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, a company out of China demonstrated a peripheral that combines a stylus and either a USB or wireless receiver to touch-enable a non-touchscreen LCD monitor or laptop screen.

The technology has made its way to the United States via Shenzhen Yifang Digital Technology Co. Ltd., mercifully shortened to Yifang Digital, whose E Fun brand markets the APEN Touch8 system. Got that?

Discovering the Touch8 digitizer was a happy coincidence. Wandering though CES' maze of booths, you never quite know what you'll find. In the rear of the South Hall, for example, Trojan was handing out thousands of vibrators. So there's that.

Yifang was showing off several versions of the Touch8, including a USB-powered model and one that used wireless technology. According to Eric Ju, an account development manager with the digital pen business unit within Yifang, the company is attempting to license or has already licensed the technology to accessory vendor Targus, which is marketing a very similar device known as the Touch Pen. The Targus Touch Pen costs $99.99 and will be available during the second quarter; the Touch8 will be available this quarter for $79.99. (Update 1/12: Targus claims that they have an exclusive license to the Touch8 technology within the United States, while APEN will sell its product in Japan.)

The Touch8 system, and presumably the Touch Pen as well, both use a receiver that mounts to one side of your screen. A combination of ultrasonic and infrared beams detects the stylus' soft, fuzzy tip, orienting it on the screen. Ju told me that a brief period of "training" the system is required, so the Touch8 learns the boundaries of the available touchscreen real estate. The stylus itself requires power, but it can be used for 500 hours (about 62 days of 8-hour workdays) without replacing the small, watch-sized batteries that power it.

I was able to play around with the Touch8 for several minutes. According to Ju, the system accommodates up to 15.6-inch displays, making the Touch8 suitable for a notebook or a small desktop monitor. The peripheral is magnetically clipped to the side of the notebook, and must be removed and recalibrated every time the notebook is closed. In other words, you'll have to suffer through some inconveniences to eliminate others. 

To its credit, the Touch8 works well at what it does: Enabling "touch." Swiping works fine, and single-touch gestures seemed to work as advertised. True touch hardware, however, is multitouch, and I'm not even sure if holding two stylii together, chopsticks style, would even work. Right now, the Touch8 works best for drawing, swiping and other single-mode uses.

Should you buy one?

Yes, but only if:

• You're desperate for Windows 8 and touch interaction
• You're running a small monitor
• You leave your laptop on your desk
• You don't mind the absence of multitouch
• You're willing to spend $100 but not willing to buy a brand new machine

Pictures by Mark Hachman.