Sci-fi interfaces

Stop watching sci-fi. Start using it.

Menu

Skip to content
  • Best of…
  • View scifiinterfaces’s profile on Facebook
  • View UCN12Nkk2M_hf-44rj5QrVvg’s profile on YouTube

CONTACT

chris{at}scifiinterfaces.com

Follow

Enter your email address to follow us and receive notifications of new posts by email. RSS at scifiinterfaces.wordpress.com/feed/

GET THE BOOK

  • About the book
  • About the critical stance of this blog
  • About this site
  • Book authors
  • Contribute!
  • Errata
  • How to Order
  • Paid and placed content
  • The Fritzes 2020 Winners
  • The Fritzes 2021 Winners
  • The Fritzes 2022 Winners
  • Who makes these things?

Content on scifiinterfaces.com is licensed as CC BY-SA 3.0.

Blogs from Other Mogs

  • Future Interface
  • HUDS + GUIS
  • Interface Love
  • Kit FUI
  • Sci-fi GUI
  • Speculative Identities
  • Typeset in the Future

Tag Archives: log in

Welcome aboard, ensign

15 May 2014 by Christopher Noessel

4

StarshipT-voiceprint01

As far as Carmen is concerned, the shuttle is small fries. Her real interest is in piloting a big ship, like the Rodger Young.

On her first time at the helm as Pilot Trainee, she enters the bridge, reports for duty, and takes the number 2 chair. As she does, she reaches out to one of two panels and flips two green toggle switches simultaneously down, and immediately says, “Identify.”

In response her display screen (a cathode ray tube, guys, complete with bowed-glass surface!)—which had been reading STATION STANDBY in alternating red and yellow capitals—very quickly flashes the legend VOICE IDENTITY CONFIRMED in white letters before displaying a waveform with the label ANALYZING VOICEPRINT, ostensibly of her voice input. Then, having confirmed her identiy, it displays her IDENTIFICATION RECORD, including her name, portrait, mission status, current assignment, and a shouty all-caps red-letter welcome message at the bottom: WELCOME ABOARD ENSIGN. There are tables of tubles along the bottom and top of these screens but they’re unreadable in my copy.


She then reaches to the panel of physical controls again, and flips a red toggle switch before pressing two out of a 4×4 grid of yellow-orange momentary buttons. She sits back in her seat, and turns to see the ridiculously-quaffed Zander in the adjacent chair. Plot ensues.

Some challenges with this setup.

Input

It looks like those vertical panels of unlabeled switches and buttons are all she’s got for input. Not the most ergonomic, if she’s expected to be entering data for any length of time or under any duress.

StarshipT-voiceprint04

Output

Having the display in front of her makes a great deal of sense, since most of the things she’s dealing with as either a pilot or navigator are not just out the front viewport.

StarshipT-voiceprint06

Workflow

The workflow for authentication is a little strange, and mismatched for the screens we see.

A toggle switch might make sense if it’s meaning was “I am present.” But we can imagine lots of other ways the system might sense that she is present passively, and not require her to flip the switch manually.

Why would it analyze the voiceprint after the voice identity was confirmed? It would have made more sense to have the first screen prompt her to provide a voice print, like “Provide voiceprint” with some visual confirmation that it’s currently recording and sensitive to her voice. Then when she finishes speaking the sample, then the next can say Analyzing voiceprint with the recorded waveform, and the final screen can read Voice identity confirmed, before moving on. I can’t readily apologize for the way it’s structured now. Fortunately it zips by so that most folks will just get it.

The waveform

That waveform, by the way, is not for the word “identify.”. I opened the screen cap, isolated the “waveform”, tweaked it in Photoshop for levels, and expanded it.

StarshipT_waveform

I ran this image through the demo of a program called PhotoSounder. What played from my speakers was more like astronomy recordings than a voice. Admittedly, it’s audio interpreted from a very low-rez version of the waveform, but seriously, more data is not going to help resolve that audio spookiness into human language.

Props to the interface designers for NOT showing the waveform of sounds in the Rodger Young’s database. It would be explanatory, of course, to immediately see the freshly recorded one being compared against the one in the database. But it would not be very secure. A malefactor would just be able to screen cap or photograph the database version, interpret the waveform like I did for the sound above, and play it back for the system for a perfect match.

Multifactor authentication

Additional props to whoever specced the password button presses after the login. She might be setting a view she wants to see, but I prefer it to mean the system is using multifactor authentication. She’s providing a password. Sure, it’s a weak one—2 hexadecimal characters—but it’s better than nothing, and would even help with the hacking I described in the above section.

StarshipT-voiceprint07

The welcome message

Finally, the welcome message feels a little out of place. Is this the only place she encounters the computer system? The literal sense of “welcome aboard” is to welcome someone aboard, which would be most appropriate only when they, you know, come aboard, which surely was some time ago. Carmen at least had to drop her stuff off in quarters. It’s also used by individuals who have been aboard welcoming newcomers the first time they greet them. But that anthropomorphizes this interface, which through this interaction and the several we’ll see next, would be dangerously overpromising.

Posted in Starship Troopers (1997). Tagged authentication, log in, multifactor authentication, security, sign on, voice authentication, voiceprint, waveform

Post navigation

TIP JAR

Properties

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (8)
  • 2017 (14)
  • Alien (1979) (5)
  • Alien (franchise) (4)
  • Aliens (1986) (4)
  • Andromeda Strain (1971) (1)
  • Armageddon (1998) (1)
  • Avengers: Infinity War (2018) (2)
  • Back to the Future Part II (1989) (24)
  • Barbarella (1968) (21)
  • Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009) (4)
  • Battlestar Galactica: The Mini-Series (2003) (16)
  • Black Mirror (2011–) (12)
  • Black Panther (2018) (16)
  • Blade Runner (1982) (12)
  • Children of Men (2007) (12)
  • Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) (8)
  • Contagion (2011) (1)
  • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) (1)
  • Deep Impact (1998) (2)
  • Destination Moon (1950) (4)
  • Doctor Strange (2016) (17)
  • Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) (1)
  • Edge of Tomorrow (2014) (1)
  • Evolution (2001) (1)
  • Firefly (2002) (3)
  • Flash Gordon (1936) (1)
  • Forbidden Planet (1956) (17)
  • Fritzes 2021 (4)
  • Fritzes 2022 (3)
  • Galaxy Quest (1999) (2)
  • Gattaca (1997) (1)
  • Ghost in the Shell (1995) (19)
  • Ghostbusters (1984) (8)
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) (1)
  • Her (2013) (10)
  • Hitchhicker’s Guide the Galaxy (2005) (1)
  • Idiocracy (2006) (19)
  • Independence Day (1996) (2)
  • Inside Out (2015) (1)
  • Interstellar (2014) (1)
  • Iron Man (5)
  • Iron Man (2008) (4)
  • Iron Man 2 (2010) (1)
  • Iron Man 3 (2013) (3)
  • Johnny Mnemonic (1995) (23)
  • Jurassic Park (1993) (17)
  • Jurassic World (2015) (1)
  • La Voyage Dans La Lune (1904) (1)
  • Las Luchadoras vs el Robot Asesino (1969) (7)
  • Logan's Run (1976) (21)
  • Mars Attacks! (1996) (1)
  • Metropolis (1927) (9)
  • Minority Report (2002) (4)
  • Mission to Mars (2000) (8)
  • Moon (2009) (1)
  • Oblivion (2013) (30)
  • Outbreak (1995) (1)
  • Person of Interest (2011–2016) (2)
  • Prometheus (2012) (36)
  • Prospect (2018) (1)
  • Red Dwarf (1989–1999) (1)
  • Redesigning Star Wars (3)
  • Soylent Green (1973) (8)
  • Space 1999 (1975-1977) (1)
  • Spacesuit series (7)
  • Spacesuits (8)
  • Star Trek (3)
  • Star Trek: Discovery (2017–) (3)
  • Star Trek: First Contact (1996) (5)
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) (6)
  • Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969) (1)
  • Star Wars (9)
  • Star Wars Holiday Special (14)
  • Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) (6)
  • Star Wars: Episode VI – The Return of the Jedi (1983) (1)
  • Starship Troopers (1997) (43)
  • Stowaway (2021) (2)
  • Strange Days (1995) (2)
  • Sunshine (2007) (4)
  • The Avengers (2)
  • The Avengers (1961–1969) (1)
  • The Avengers (2012) (25)
  • The Cabin in the Woods (2012) (14)
  • The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) (9)
  • The Expanse (2015–) (1)
  • The Faithful Wookiee (8)
  • The Fifth Element (1997) (58)
  • The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) (1)
  • The Good Place (2016) (1)
  • The Incredibles (2004) (1)
  • The Jetsons (1962) (2)
  • The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) (1)
  • The Lawnmower Man (1992) (1)
  • The Martian (2015) (1)
  • The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) (1)
  • The Space Between Us (2016) (1)
  • THX-1138 (1971) (1)
  • Tomorrowland (2015) (1)
  • Total Recall (1990) (2)
  • TRON: Legacy (2010) (1)
  • WALL•E (2008) (12)
  • Wearable (7)
  • White Christmas (11)
  • World War Z (2013) (1)
  • X2 (2003) (1)
  • ~ Active academy (2)
  • ~ April Fools (1)
  • ~ Book news (3)
  • ~ Comps (18)
  • ~ Drone Week (5)
  • ~ Glossary (2)
  • ~ Interview (8)
  • ~ Marvel Cinematic Universe (11)
  • ~ Movie Night (15)
  • ~ Overview (20)
  • ~ Piloting (3)
  • ~ Readership poll (14)
  • ~ Report Cards (21)
  • ~ Sci-Fi University (3)
  • ~ scifianimatedgifs (85)
  • ~ Site news (31)
  • ~ Web (9)
  • ~Author bio (6)
  • ~Gendered AI (19)
  • ~Meta (34)
  • ~opportunity (2)
  • ~The Fritzes (11)

Archives

  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
Powered by WordPress.com. Theme: Sunspot by WordPress.com.
 

Loading Comments...