I'm perfectly happy about having amplification of my body to do these things, just like a calculator is an amplification of my ability to do math. I should still understand how to do math, though. I shouldn't just give it over to the calculator, and people should still have control over stuff they do with Glass.
TR: Have you tried Glass yet?
JH: I haven't as I don't have $15,000 to throw on something. I've tried heads up displays, so I know what Glass is.
However, I'm also particularly excited about the concept of Siri and voice communications. I'm a big fan of Star Trek, and I'd love to be able to talk to a computer the same way they talk to the ship's computer and have it understand me, so I think all those things are great.
TR: What else would you like to see from Star Trek? Teleporters?
JH: I feel the same way about teleporters that Dr. McCoy felt. He was always uncomfortable going into the teleporter, and I think I would be too. I'm much more happy with the concept of the replicator, something that could put a cup of tea in front of me.
Gaming fit?
TR: It looks fairly uncomfortable. Moving on, do you think Linux is a natural fit for gaming?
JH: Yes, and many years ago I looked at the gaming problem, which is interesting. Quite frankly, the lack of games is one of the big reasons why Linux hasn't made it onto [more] desktops.
Even people who are 50 years old are going to say they have to have a particular game, so they have to have to do a dual boot and stick with Windows. Of course, developers look for the largest install base possible, which is naturally Windows, and then Apple. They don't take it to the third platform as that would take away engineering resources for marking new additions and features.
I'm glad that Steam is on Linux now, as unfortunately there were a lot of gaming companies, such as ID, that went into it a bit too early and we didn't see the success that they had hoped for. The other thing that the gaming community has to know or think about is that there's a high degree of piracy within games. Every time the gaming people think they've fixed the piracy problem, there's another way around it.
Even if free software people don't necessarily believe in pirating, they do believe in free software, so there's even fewer people who would download a game and pay for it. As the number of people using desktop Linux increases, not because it's free but because it's a good system, you might find an ever-expanding market.
Plus the gaming people are changing their strategy. The game may be free, and money will be made other ways in-game, or by selling little figures, so the more people that use the game the better.
Also the gaming engines tend to be simpler and more portable, and what they're doing is selling data that's the same across different systems, which could be the game's music, scenes and engine. The effort of creating a game on Linux is now minute, so they're all doing it.
