It is the aggregate of means by which people—the users—interact with the system—a particular machine, device, computer program or other complex tool.

Don’t do that with your computer, but think about it in connection of real, social life with the machine.

“As we may think”, Vannevar Bush

According to some statements of Friedrich Kittler and Matthew Fuller:

- Because of Digitalization people don’t perceive different media as individual media, and we perceive that as a whole: “as a surface interface“. And interaction becomes in a technical action.

- Sound, image and text become just numbers and symbols. (Turing’s machine, computers, digital devices).

- Fuller talks about the “apparatus” as a group of programmes who need humans to control and make them work.

- Fuller refers to Marx who stated that Everything in life can be converted in a technological extension, in a machine: Labour, social life, leisure.  Everything that humans do, the machine can do this with numbers and symbols.

- He also says that this relation subject-object represents “the will of power” because the human is the one who controls the object (he uses the example of the camera) but also he can do just the things that the apparatus can do.

Thus, Interface is not just the connection between people (human body) and the machine (as we said before), but the connection between human body and the machine as an extension of human’s functions.

It is more than a technical action or interaction. We can say that it is a technical interaction which involves the most of human activities.

Furthermore, if we see the current digital games we can realize that interface is not just a way to communicate from the body to the machine, but also from the machine to the body.

Look at this example:

Wii Fit (Nintendo) is not just a game: it is the option to do sports at home, without going to the gym, without a personal trainer. It is a good example of a machine as an extension of social activities and of a machine ordering the human body what to do.

What happens when the machine is the one who starts to tell you what to do? Which one is the extension of the other?

If we don’t perceive the different media, can we say that maybe we lose content? Or do we just need to see and connect with the Interface?

Why do people like the touch pad tool most? Maybe they feel like they have more power or authority over the device?

Networks
There are a variety of ways for this information to find its way to us.
Alexander R. Galloway (Protocol – How Control Exists after Decentralization)

Different ways how a computer (or company, or airport) can be connected to others:
ex. Content in a Distributed Network doesn’t run on a single system but is connected to different other users. This will cause a stabile system (Think about instant updating or detours to get to a website.)

Systems other that centralized are becoming more popular, like the popularity of illegal file sharing nowadays, and the decentralized airline system.

Different layers of protocols (system of rules)

The interface of, for example, this blog is built up out of several protocol layers.
These layers work in and around the interface to define the flow of the desired information.
- A layer to establish the beginning and end of the information flow.
- The Application layer is like the actual accessing of your information.
- The Transport layer is responsible for making sure that the data traveling across the network arrives at its destination correctly
- The Internet layer. This layer is larger still than both the application and transport layers. The Internet layer is concerned with one thing: the actual movement of data from one place to another.
- The Link layer is the hardware-specific layer that must ultimately enclose any data transfer.

These combined will ensure the information getting from the source to the user in the desired fashion.
One of the main importance’s of interface design, is that it accepts everything (in for example a browser)
We call this totality. In this matter different forms of information (video, images, hypertext) will be visible to us.

Rules for successful continuity in hypertext (A.R. Galloway)

We can see nowadays that Interfaces are evolving side by side with hardware.
- Games get more complicated, so will the interface
- Cameras will contain more options, the interface anticipates along

Media Theory Researcher Machiko Kusahara tells us: “Our culture is undergoing a truly drastic change in terms of our physical and psychological relationship with space and other bodies.”

The following video support this statement, applied on contemporary use of Inteface:

-Jefferson Han at TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference:
Research scientist, mainly focussing on “multi touch sensing”
-“Mixed Reality Interface” at the CeBIT 2006 exhibition in Hanover
-Apple Ipod “Coverflow” Interface
-Nintento Wii Fit

As we can see, the possibilities are endless when we speak about Interface; It will never seize its evolution.
Once they become more evolved, they will become more intelligent and start making decisions for us.
This power of prediction is part of what we call Artificial Intelligence.

How far will we let Artificial Intelligence (AI) develop in deciding our computer interaction; where do we “lose touch” with the computer?

Primary goal and consumer uses

At the point of manufacture the focus is primarily economic,
At the point of consumption it is the users or consumers that negotiate the meanings and uses of these devices.
ex. Giddens gives the example how home computers in the 1980s were often sold as information technologies, but were widely consumed as game machines, although not intentionally designed for this. This was also supported by Mackey:

“the effects of a technology [...] are not determined by its production, its physical form or its capability […] these depend on how they are consumed. (Mackay 1997: 263).”

- Do you agree that users can’t distinguish their media in a machine or apparatus? Do you feel that an interface should distinguish the media for its users?  (Kittler, Fuller)

- Will interfaces, as we know them, become unnecessary and disappear in the nearby future?

- How far will we let Artificial Intelligence (AI) develop in deciding our computer interaction; where do we “lose touch” with the computer?