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?"

Comments

Re:Keyboard implementation should be easy...

[internet-redstar]

About your 'caring' remark...
a friend of mine just send a mail messege to one of the OpenSource projects he sometimes sends a bugreport to, with congrats to the other people for their work.

If we don't pay for our software, we can at least pat each others backs :)


GNU, bringing the fun back into computing :)