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Tangible Interfaces for Computers
Jesrad writes "A friend pointed me to this impressive demonstration of the SenseTable by James Patten, of the Tangible Media Group project of the MIT. This project aims at conceiving better human-machine interfaces by using the concept of physical objects that the user can manipulate, to represent abstract computer data and commands. The device looks and works a lot like what was envisioned in Minority Report, it uses pressure to track blocks on a sensitive surface, and feeds back to the user by superimposing graphical data. Want to change the volume of your MP3 player? Just put a block on it and turn like you would a radio knob. Menus and commands are accessed by moving a block along command hierarchy, represented in a simple tree, or by touching the command's name. So far it only lacks a device for text input, like a keyboard, but maybe voice recognition will replace it?"
A concept like this one has already been explored at MIT with the Audiopad (Google Cache), used to make music but really could be used as a new, innovative kind of interface.
What I'm waiting for is for someone to combine that Linux HD of the PS2 and the EyeToy into a Minority Report type interface.
This work reminds me of the work that Douglas Englebart was doing in the 1960s. And while I think this new interface work is great and needed I also believe that the biggest impediment to adopting new methods are cultural ones. While you could (and should) say that the delay in adoption of Englebart's ideas (windowing systems, a mouse for input) was the technical challenge of bringing these methods to home computing mahcines, you can't forget that cultural forces were also at work slowing down people's acceptance of the GUI.
But a more dramatic example of the slowness of cultural change is the fact that I am typing this on a QWERTY keyboard. Dvorak has been around for years but still we type on devices that show their Victorian age heritage. Even when there is no need at all for the random shuffling of the alphabet across the current keyboard in the way we use it!
Another fine example is the red-headed stepchild of the Englebart revolution; the BAT keyboard. The BAT is supposedly easier to learn to use (I've never tried it myself) than a regular keyoard and is also supposedly more ergonomic than a keyboard, as well. It is aslo easier on the joints (or so they say). Now it's mostly sold for people who have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other injuries/disabilities. But it was originally thought to be a better method for input for everyone (injured/disabled or not) to use.
Englebart was right about most things (which were later refined by others into the form in which we now recognize them), but the BAT just never caught on. Too different, probably, from what people had already been using for over a century.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
John Underkoffler is a former member of the Tangible Media Group, and was the science advisor on the film.