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The Future Of EyeToy - Spells, GUIs, Grooves?
Thanks to the New York Times for their article investigating future possibilities for Sony's EyeToy PlayStation 2 camera. The writer has a chance to see Sony R+D's experimental prototypes using the just-released USB camera add-on, which include manipulating Harry Potter-style onscreen spells with a wand "...made from parts of a hotel clothes hanger [that] has a brightly colored ball on one end", and an onscreen interface replicating "...the futuristic computer operated by Tom Cruise's detective character in the movie 'Minority Report'." Production has been ramping up quickly on the camera for the US, and Sony hope to replicate the success of the peripheral in the UK, where EyeToy: Groove, a rhythm-based game, is the first piece of expansion software released.
Last year I completed a similar project using a standard webcam and some cheap LEDs. It was no great suprise to find that using the computer by waving your arms around in the air was a pain in the rear.
A friend of mine bought an Intel webcam a few years back that came with several motion games. (hit the bouncing ball with your hand, scrub the screen clean etc) They were pretty shallow, but from what I hear, Sony's is too. Why is this such a big deal? Do they expect us to run out and buy this thing just because Sony tells us we should?
Maybe not a desktop UI per se, but it definitely has a future in providing deeper user interactions. One problem with current generations of computers is that they're stupid in the sense that they haven't a clue what's going on in the real world. For a start I think it would be nice for computers to know when people are around their computers, or whether the user is paying attention, or even (by sight)who is currently using the computer. This is all basic stuff that a 4-year old does better than a computer.
Then again I'm sure this is the wrong place to discuss this. After all, who needs anything more than a command-line?