The future of HCI – editorial

Human-Computer Interaction has a short but lively history and evolution.After the monstrous world of mainframes and text-based terminals came a countermovement in form of various graphics-based personal computer types, which turned the individual citizen into a computer user.For many years, a focus on creative, but also ergonomic solutions can be found.Efficient graphics workstations formed a separate branch of this evolution, which diffused into personal computer platforms through the media and gaming industry.The Internet, especially its mobile variants, then led to a substantial miniaturization of powerful and highly interactive computers, the design of which is again characterized more by creative, but also a chaotic proliferation of technology and functionality instead of well-defined qualities.The fact that computers have not only gained a foothold in all areas of life, but have also become game changers, was hardly foreseeable to the extent that we are experiencing today.The one zillion dollar question now is how the next upheavals will look like in terms of devices, operating systems and networking; R but above all in their design as more or less intelligent interactive systems like followed by current Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence or by embedded systems like in the Internet of Things approaches.Perhaps we may soon have to speak generally about "Human-Technology Communication" than just about the more reduced term "Human-Computer Interaction", whatever that means to our scientific future.In this special issue of the i-com journal we present interesting but scientifically explainable and technologically sound forecasts for the next decades to discuss them further in our HCI community.We asked experienced