Due to the development of technology, people are having less and less contacts with the actual environment. Therefore, we are getting more familiar with the sensory of the plastics and glass screen rather the actual environment. We are more familiar with see images through a glass screen (and nowadays we have VR/AR technologies to replace that). Hence, it seems that we start to forgot how to interact with the actual objects and environment.
Take the hand as the example. The hands in the futuristic environment are used as an intermediate tool to have a visually satisfied results. However, why should the hands have only that limited functionality (only touches)? As mentioned in the reading, the hands can understand the change in patterns, change in weight. It is very sensitive to any changes. Therefore, why don’t make it to be responsible for more interactive things.
I believe that the potential for changing the ways we interact with technology is really significant. Interactivity does not necessary comes from the screen itself. It is how the user interact with it. Therefore, the technology should be the intermediate tool for any actions that will be carried out by the audiences. Physical computing seems to be a possible way to do that. While using the hardware materials as the central technologies, the actions and sensory are experienced by the users.
Finally, this is not to say that all of the current technologies of tablet and laptop are the terrible choices. My point is that those technologies shall not be the main attention of our interaction with any media and technology.