The computer is arguably the most important tool that has been developed in our history. Most of us interact with one on a daily basis and we are all faced with the same challenge of getting information in and out of these pesky devices. We've even had to coin new terms for the impact it's had on our health. From carpal tunnel and gamer thumb, to qwerty-itis (the impressions on your face when you fall asleep with your head on the keyboard), we suffer every day due to the poor connection we have with our computers.

Computers were originally developed with a bare minimum of input/output capability.

The first was punch cards or ticket tape where your entire program or data run could be ruined if you dropped your cards or spilled coffee on them. In the 50's the command line was invented, tied to a teletype style keyboard, you could input commands to the computer, then receive the answer on ticket tape. Finally in 1978 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) developed a video terminal (VT100), a format that is still in use today in many corporate environments. VT100 allowed users to see near instant results on the screen, which was a major breakthrough.

This was still a poor way of interacting with computers, so in the early 80s, the first graphical user interfaces (GUI) started to surface. The ubiquitous mouse, actually developed in 1968, was the cornerstone of this new user experience. Finally you could point and click, which opened the computer world for a wide range of users.

Microsoft and Apple, who have led the GUI race, have recently taken off with multi-touch displays and surfaces, such as the iPhone and Microsofts cool new product "Surface". These new technologies are beginning to allow you to interact with a computer in a more "human" fashion, using natural gestures and motions.

So what is the next step in human-computer interaction? There are several promising new technologies: devices that sense nerve impulses and trigger different actions, for example a project by Microsoft called MUCI that is a device that you strap around your arm that can sense movements of your fingers and send signals to a computer; and even more impressive, systems that utilize a camera to sense your hand positions and using natural gestures, interact with projected images. The MIT Media Lab is working hard on the last one; you can watch a demo of it on Ted.com.

The holy grail of this research is direct brain-computer interfaces (BCI) that offer the ability to read signals sent directly from your brain. This isn't science fiction, it's already in place in several cases of people suffering from ALS or spinal cord injures. Right now the technology is primitive, but allows users to select letters or control a mouse on screen, which allows them to communicate with the outside world. The systems are both non-invasive (cap worn on the head) and an invasive one where electrodes are placed directly on the motor cortex. The best case is that they are able to further develop the non-invasive form, as most people won't want brain surgery just to replace their keyboards!

We're going to be experiencing a revolution in the next few years as computers get better at voice recognition, and interpreting our human gestures to allow us to manipulate data in a more human format. The days of patiently pecking out your text messages are numberd.