Windows Powershell attempts to do what you're describing. PowerShell doesn't manipulate text streams, it manipulates .Net CLR objects. That allows shell programs to expose data in a much more meaningful way. You don't have to have a parser in every program that interacts with the shell when you can send and receive typed data.
I haven't worked much with it lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if Powershell was the closest existing technology to what the author is thinking of.
I think he agrees, except for the textual display.
From the article:
Data structure. Windows PowerShell had a chance to
redesign the terminal from scratch, but defaulted to
the same old grid of ASCII. One innovative thing they did
do was add structure to their data, piping .NET objects
instead of raw text, allowing the user to select fields by
name instead of writing elaborate AWK scripts. The shell
for the research OS Famke does a similar thing for
higher-order functions
I didn't quite get where the author was going with that. Windows Powershell has access to the full Windows .Net API. If you want to spawn a window to display graphics or what have you, you're free to do so.
I haven't worked much with it lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if Powershell was the closest existing technology to what the author is thinking of.