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"Interface-Free" Touch Screen at TED
Down8 writes, "Jeff Han, an NYU researcher, has recently shown off his 'interface free' touch screen technology at the TEDTalks in Monterey. Some sweet innovation that I hope makes it to the mainstream soon." The photo manipulation interface is reminiscent of "Minority Report."
How do you not have an interface?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
So, what exactly what his hands touching during the 9min 23s video?
This is a great development for people with hand, finger and wrist injuries. Many of them have profound problems using a keyboard, so a touchscreen like this actually works better. They're not always as efficient as somebody using a typical keyboard, but I've worked with people who can type up to 45 words per minute on such touchscreen devices.
I'm also reminded of this story of a man who seriously injured his hands while blogging. This is the sort of device he may wish to look into, once it becomes widely available.
This was shown on CommandN and commented on and blogged to death since FEBRUARY! GOSH!
Gorkman
This is an exciting setup...and I agree with his assertion that the OLPC (one laptop per child) is sort of like introducing millions of children to our inane weaknesses instead of our strengths. Really, I know that something like this wouldn't completely remove the need for a keyboard and such for many years, but it is a striking evolutionary step forward.
Just think how easy all those dramatic situations would have been in the 24th century if the Starship enterprise had some of these!
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
It would be interesting to see this integrated with Sun's looking glass desktop...
Hand me a doughnut while I work on this would ya? Everyone take a moment and look BETWEEN the keys on your keyboard. Now put that all on your monitor.
Ok, everyone realizes this was recorded in February right?
Last I checked its the end of October.
Jeff Han has been covered I don't know how many times on how many sites (probably on Slashdot too - haven't checked the archives yet).
There's no such thing as no interface btw.
Yes, you can remove a lot of the mode-switching with different gestures, but there is always going to be some sort of interface to allow you to access other functions.
In my mind, once you get above about 4 or 5 gestures, things start to become confusing for people again - what was that gesture again? Thus defeating the purpose of no interface.
That has to be the coolest thing I've seen in a long time.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
Seems like modifying X11's style of copy-paste would work really well for moving chunks of text- highlight it with one hand, then paste it into a text body with the other hand- it'd be faster since you wouldn't have to move each hand as much. If you insist on a literal interpretation of "middle-click", it'd also make for a great way to mod posts down on /. ;)
Care about privacy? Read this!
No problem! And don't worry, theres more on the way!
Kind regards,
WWW Bastardisation Dept., Microsoft
If they see this application. Bring it out to the market soon. Mr.Google here is something you should be buying.
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
in the computer industry.. and yes, the fact that this stuff isn't actually available to buy yet means it aint coming out of the lab. Why? Cause it takes people who are willing to accept risk to turn research into products and not every grad student is into taking risks with their life.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The coolest part about this demo is the multi-touch display. I don't really see anything that innovative about the UI's or the lack of UI's that is presented. The only thing about touch screen displays is, at work I already get annoyed when a person comes over and presses their grubby fingers on my display. I would be quite upset if it was encouraged for people to come over to my display and drag all 10 of their grubby fingers all over my display. Where are the 3D non-touch human interface devices?
Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very old news. OMG
Sure, it's neat - giant touchscreen with multiple points of contact and gestures that zoom and pan.
And this is what's going to "change the way we interact with computers"? Odd as it may sound, most application interfaces don't revolve around zooming and panning; there are considerably harder problems left to solve.
Funny he should mention RSI too, because that keyboard that will free you from the bonds of conformity, and that's displayed on a hard surface, will kill your wrists in a matter of months.
The thing is great for the Earth-type applications, but that's about it. It's cool technology - why must every innovation promise to change all future computer interactions?
(btw, if that picture viewer's "Pile of Crap" metaphor is where UI design is headed, I'm never upgrading again. I have my desk to act as a pile of crap, it won't make me feel more comfortable with my computer if it emulates that)
sic transit gloria mundi
No longer will one hand be religated to the mouse!
A better name for this article would have been "Multi-touch screen applications"
And there is a better video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-y3ZNaCqs
No commentary, but a few more apps are shown.
PowerLevel.com - A next generation marketplace for virtual items and services
Come on, mods. Don't mod parent offtopic.
Anyway, man, here's the YouTube video which I was able to watch (also running Linux with an older Flash version).
- The map application had menu items at the top. Isn't that an interface.
- Interfaces aren't "bad" or something we need to get rid of. Like a table of contents in a book, people need some reference that tells them how, where, and when to interact or gain value from a object.
- This demo reeks of cool geek energy and zero business direction. Lava lamps and bright dots that fly, cool!
- This technology is obviously suited for one major purpose, the driving force of the internet and giant hard drives, PORN!
Ok... maybe photo editing and 3d modeling. But, not without an interface!
What do you mean Windows only? Works fine on my Mac.
Works fine on my mac!
Suck a lemon?
Works good on mac
Well it makes for a great demo but I notice he didn't actually manipulate any information there, just graphics.
What I'd be really interested in is seeing some kind of email or office app done this way. I suspect it's much harder to apply these techniques to very data-heavy displays or data based around language rather than graphics. That's not to say it's a bad idea - multi-touch will probably arrive on our desktops at some point, but I see it as being a supplement to what we have now rather than replacing it completely.
I love seeing new UI research though. WIMP has so many flaws, it seems clear we can do better given what we've learned in the past 25 years ...
Everybody clean between your keys. Now clean your monitor.
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
get the Zipped MP4 there : http://ted.streamguys.net/ted_han_j_2006.zip (It's linked from the article : podcast thingy) If you can't read MP4, PLF is your friend.
sw5YRhw4ln3pr7$Ock1/4ma0u8Lw2Tm5l6/7DOiC5e6t4NSb6
In fact, it absolutey does have an interface. Granted, it's a simple interface, and one that contextually changes with each application, but it's still an interface. Basically, all he's showing is an interface that essentially has two mice, not one, and instead of using your hand to manipulate a physical mouse (which is then translated onto the screen), they've built a complicated touch-screen system to eliminate the mouse altogether. And then they added a second one. Don't get me wrong, this stuff is neato, but it isn't really that impressive. Looks like an insanely expensive touch-screen display, with software that supports two mice.
:P
Also, I can't quite let it slide the claim on the website - "he demonstrates - for the first time publicly - his intuitive, "interface-free," touch -drive computer screen". They need to really emphasize the "publicly" part of that statement. I saw a show on National Geographic (might be a year or two old, too), pretty sure it's the same exact research group with some of the same types of demos like in the video. They very clearly used the same "interface-free" design to navigate city maps. The show was about stopping terrorits or something (it was actually kinda silly), and it emphasized this two-handed, "mouse-less" map navigation stuff so much that it almost seemed like an advertisement.
Perhaps they should call it "dual mouse" interface?
This video is nearly 9 months old, David Pogue (http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com) mentioned it months ago.
Could you imagine a whole day of waving your arms, all directions, 8-12 hours a day!
It is stupid!
This isn't something that would immediately go to the Desktop. I can see three markets for this technology: 1. Education Imagine a child's desktop and a computer's desktop becoming one thing. If somehow, in the future, made cheap enough this could be put on kids' desks in school. No need for computer labs. No losing homework. And then you could have a big "chalkboard" version that has capability of displaying something a student may have to share with a class. It's a long way off. It's not going to be economically feasible anytime soon. But that's a possibility later on. 2. Tablet Computing If you don't see this one, you're blind. It fits perfectly. It's similar, but with no pen. And the platform would be more natural as a "tablet." You can pull up a (nearly) full-sized keyboard on a layer above what you're typing into, then dismiss it without anything getting in the way. I mean, it's not like you're going to be moving anything else while you're typing something, right? 3. Public Use Kiosks. ATM machines. They're all cumbersome and haven't changed much since the 90s. You could have an entire wall in an airport that's just one of these interfaces. You walk up to it wherever convenient, tap the screen, and you get an intuitive screen displayed exactly where it's comfortable to you. The front office of a business (more beneficial for some than others). If strategically placed and designed, these big displays could do alot of nifty things. I don't see it making it's way onto a desktop, but if done right, the desktop could be considered nonpoint.
If you need me to fix your CPU, send me an internet and I'll get right back to you. Thanks.
This is not from the Minority Report that was released in 2002. This was shown in shuttle interface in Earth the Final Conflict which aired in 1997.
This type of interface was also in The first $20 millions is the hardest. But that came out in the same year as The Minority report.
Fight Spammers!
I dont know.
I attempted twice to check out the video but the ad got in the way CNN style. I took about 10 seconds of it and gave up.
No matter how interesting, I'll NEVER bear an ad before a small online video.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Not only is the keyboard an issue, consider the rest of his body! He's bent over the screen, neck bent to view the screen that's 2 feet below eye level. Any basic ergonomics advise says you should put the top edge of your display at eye level. Anything lower than that and you'll experience neck and back pain. Keyboard-related RSI will go nicely with a stiff neck.
I swear, if this were from a business selling some new product, I'd say they were trying to boost sales. But he's a researcher. I guess they must be up for more funding or something...?
Ever cleaned your monitor? It usually involves a cloth and a spray bottle, and takes a few seconds.
I'd much rather have to clean my monitor than my keyboard.
I recently attended a demo of a similar device at my company. The pentagon already has purchased units and the company is trying to branch out to private sector applications. They were using for collaboration with geographical software (gis data).
Hand me a doughnut while I work on this would ya? Everyone take a moment and look BETWEEN the keys on your keyboard. Now put that all on your monitor.
It's okay that you masturbate to all that pornography that you find online. A lot of people do it. But have you ever tried squirting your cum into a tissue or into toilet paper? If you do that, instead of just letting it spray all over, you won't get as much, if any, on your keyboard.
Ok....Slashdot must be borked.....all of these replies to my comment about stuff only working on windows (by the way, the link works just fine if you have the new Flash 9 Beta) and I didn't even say anything about it except that this whole posts is OLD NEWS!
Gorkman
It's a very cool looking product, and I'm sure there are some uses for it, but I don't see this becoming commonplace by any means. It just doesn't seem to be a really better way to interface with our machines then what already exists.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWThis is good. One of the major problems with graphic design systems, both CAD and animation, is that it's only possible to select one thing at a time. Many operations involve two objects, and you're forced to some sequential select-and-manipulate interface. This gets you past that.
Many high-end animation systems will accept multiple input devices, from MIDI keyboards to knob boxes to articulated skeletons. At the low end, we have the scroll wheel, which was a big improvement. Finally, you could do two things at once without shifting modes. This is a further step in that direction.
Video editors on deadline are going to want this thing. The obvious application is a replacement for the Avid NewsCutter, which sells into an environment which is not very price-sensitive.
1) he specifically uses the words "the kinds of interfaces you can build on it"
2) this guy is the worst public speaker in HISTORY
I actually use a touchscreen all day long... my Tablet PC. In some senses it's kind of worse than what's shown in this video... because I rest my whole hand on it for a long amount of time while I take notes in class.
So does it get dirty? Yep... after a couple of weeks of use it gets a pretty good film on it. Is it bothersome? Nope. Unless you are looking for it you really can't tell... it's actually the texture that let's me know when it's dirty (it's not quite as slick to write on). I just carry some windex wipes with me and wipe it down a couple of times a month... no big deal.
Now... like some of the other people have said... take a look at your keyboard... mine is infinitely more dirty than the screen on my tablet PC. Even if I did wipe it down a couple of times a month (which I don't... well.. I brush it off maybe when I'm dusting... but not really clean it) it wouldn't be as clean as a freshly wiped down piece of glass.
Being from the Tablet PC crowd I've really grown attached to being able to interact with my computer through my "fingertips". To me, this video was really cool... and I hope the tech comes down to us lowly consumers as fast as possible...
Friedmud
you mean no human ever interacts with the computer?
I can understand if you don't care for windows, but I think there is a better solution.
I think that streaming media is very [buffering]....
As he was manipulating the map application it really jumped out at me how cool it would be to run a Mandelbrot set app that way. It would have made a fun and awesome addition to the presentation. If I were working in his lab that would almost certainly be the first thing I would add to the system.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It is obvious that the people at the talk "oohing" and "ahhing" are not in the field of large screen interaction. The interaction stuff is standard fare, and not really innovative.
The multi-touch technology is pretty good, however. There are other multi-touch technologies (from the likes of MERL and SMART), but I this one is better in several ways.
It's BETA, quit whining.
Very neat and completely useless. I don't know about you guys, but I find it much easier to find my data in my nice hierarchical filesystem than by digging through a garbage can fan full of papers, which is what this GUI simulates.
Property is theft.
So, what exactly what his hands touching during the 9min 23s video?
I'm not sure, but I can tell you what *my* hands were touching during that 9min 23s video.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
This reminded me of this video I watched a while back, with Google Earth and Warcraft III on a giant touch-screen display using two fingers to zoom or select units, etc. Pretty cool stuff. Too bad it's probably still to expensive to hope for it to become mainstream anytime soon.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
"The only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned." Anon
As the guy notes that they should have this in google lobby. More or less it is good for 'removed' visual data manipulation. Nothing serious, like office work. What is missing, something that was learned ago, is safety brackets data removal or change. This interface will allow less technical people to use the computer. What is missing for the demonstration, is critical data alteration. You won't see this being used in the office for spreadsheets, word processing, etc etc - real meat of the computer industry. Tactile feedback of a flat screen, for typing is absent as well.
So to define what it can be used for is this: displaying and sorting data, not alteration, modification and/or creation of data, except non-critical visual data. Uses for this don't run along with what computer traditionally for. These people will need to open new markets... failing that technology will fade into the past.
Anyway how much is one of those screens?
2c.
What were they supposed to do, write a transcript so you could read it with Lynx? Or maybe offer the entire video is an animated GIF?
Not everything can be fully accessible to everyone.
I'd wager that having it as Flash video makes it more accessible to more people than say, embedding it with other proprietary video software like Windows Media Player or Real Player, or even offering the file for direct download using some codec that you assume everyone has (not everyone can offer 10 different encoded videos so you can watch it on fringe systems). Flash video is, fortunately or unfortunately, the lowest common denominator across the widest variety of systems at this point.
I have an interface in front of me right now. I have pen, paper; I've got a camera... if I want to record a visual of something, I have to pick up my camera. Never mind that the camera has one of these "non-intuitive interfaces" that we (rather, the article) are trying to remove, I still have to do something to get it done. Anything that I do interfaces with reality.
One of the goals of the iconic desktop originally was to duplicate the real desktop in some fashion to make things simpler for humans to interact with their work on a computer, so that there wouldn't be too much of a translation layer to build between real and virtual work. Similarly, some try to implement handwriting recognition to remove the interface of the keyboard from the writing process.... until they realize that geeks like us can't write for crap and can type ten times faster as well.
Regardless, of course, there's got to be some way to tell the computer that you actually want to resize the strange hand-like object on that screen the guy had (I think it was a hand, my sound was off and I lost interest rapidly) rather than add to the drawing. There's got to be some way to change modes, as he did between drawing the outline, getting it filled in, and then moving it around - that's all interface. Sure, it looked sweet that there wasn't any menu pull-down happening, no mouse, but really, you've got a pretty damn simple application that can be manipulated in this fashion.
Do anything complex, and you'll have to have a more complex interface suddenly.
"Computer... Computer... (McCoy hands Scotty the mouse) Aye. Hello computer." -- Scotty
Even talking to a computer would be an interface..... a pretty complex one, though definitely one that could be considered intuitive, if you could use your chosen language for commanding it rather than some cryptic "ok, list the files, sort by date then name.... uh.... ok that one no that shit fucking computer where's my mouse"
I would just like to have a second mouse cursor if I have a second mouse attached, and apps designed to allow me to do those crazy things with a second cursor. Large touch screens would be nice, but whats really affordable now are multiple mice. Heck even if apps didn't have any special support for extra mice it would still be nice to have a second mouse cursor. Is there no demand for this sort of functionality in a productivity environment as opposed to the creativity type environments? I keep hoping with each iteration of Windows that support for multiple mouse cursors will be native.
His keyboard Idea sounds pretty cool. I would like to see some more practical applications than what he showed. Games would be cool with this interface. I think the idea is great, moving objects on your screen as if they were actually on your desk. But gestures will still need to be learned. Also, we would all get neck problems from staring down all the time at the screen rather than looking straight ahead. All in all, this technology seems very interesting.
Mark
And then wipe it completely clean and sterile with an alcohol wet nap. Then try the same procedure with a keyboard.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
I can just see it now. Do you use a metal edge ruler and a high quality compass with it? How come the drafting eraser leaves big blotches of new lines on the display? LOLOLOL.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Any more tips of interesting videos from there?
That was so annoying. The technology is cool but in the end it was only just ok cause I mostly wanted him to shut up especially when he talked about there being no interface.
But this is a significant broadening of the "vocabulary" used to interact with a GUI. For data entry, i.e. coding or taking notes or writing email, there seems to be nothing new..... but that guy strikes me as kind of a dumbass so perhaps someone out there does have something cool and hasn't told anybody yet. We'll have to wait and see.
$_.=["a".."z"," "]->[rand 27] while !/just another perl hacker$/;
Fuck the PS3, where do I preorder one of these?!?
slashdotted that.
/. covered it when the video was first done. you still need a file manager etc.
I think
There was an unknown error in the submission.
There are 38 more available, on a wide range of subjects.
I just finished watching an extremely impressive talk by Ashraf Ghani, former Finance Minister of Afghanistan. Dear President Bush, please listen to this guy.
I've already selected and downloaded 3 more videos which I plan to spend the next hour watching.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
from the video "there is no reason in this day and age we should be conforming to a physical device" The whole idea of Tangible Interfaces is to exploit our natural ability to manipulate physical objects. In fact the guy that developed the minority report stuff, John Underkoffler, was big in Tangible Interfaces when he was a student at mit media lab. In my opinion, physical objects aren't being used enough in interfaces. I do like the fact that touchscreen interfaces gets rid of the indirection than occurs when you use a mouse to move a cursor to manipulate some icon.
While they may be useful while other technology matures, the life of interfaces based on flat surfaces is limited. The keyboard, the mouse, this touch screen (cool though it may be) are a decade away from obscurity. As it has in the past, I think the game industry is going to open the doors to the public of true 3D interfaces. If the Wii is as big a hit as is predicted, and works as well as some hope, people are going to start expecting that sort of control in the future. The days of hand pain from using current interface tools will hopefully end, because no matter how "natural" that keyboard or mouse is, it's natural for one person and not another. I for one would love to have an interface that involved nothing more than my hands in mid air making natural, comfortable movements.
And for those still stuck on the porn aspect, just imagine what that could do for you.
Hardly. This is good for rough manipulation as shown in the video, but quite useless for finer control--the highest pointing accuracy it can achieve is the half inch square under your fingertip. I always get a yawn when I hear that some new interface technology will replace everything before it. These technologies tend to be more cumulative, adding to a richer interface when taken together--mouse, keyboard, touch screen and microphone together can lead to a much more sophisticated interaction when each one is used for its strengths rather than exclusively.
ewww! enuff said.
the linked talk also won the price for " The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word Kinda In A Serious Scientific Presentation".
He invented the drawing tablet!
How many times are we going to see this posted? This is getting ridiculous. It was neat the first time. Now it's getting old.
Combined with this Pen-based Interface and the many different ways of interacting with files in this system, we could be on to something extremely cool, functional, and versatile.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
Is that free as in 'freedom' or free as in 'beer' ?
:wq
Look at the size of your fingertips, look at how small changes in presure and orientation can distort the fingerprint's outline, now imagine just how precise such technology could be.
It's still cool though, and I'd certainly like to play with this (I assume I won't have enough money to buy one for the next 10 years).
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I have a piece of software called SwishVideo2 which takes video and creates flash movies. They realised that Flash 9 broke all the movies that their product created (when viewed using Flash 8 and earlier) so they issued a patch that allowed Flash 8 and earlier to view their Flash 9 compatible movies. Why should everybody have to redo all their work just so Macrodobe can charge a new fee ?
100% correct. One of my old clients switched over to using flash for videos, and more people can watch them now, and easier, than ever before.
You can't complain at people because your choice of OS is missing software to view their files. I have this new idea of picking the tools you need, then installing the OS required to use them. On my servers, firewall, media machine, I run linux. On my laptop I use for browsing+work, I use windows. In each case, I picked the best tools for the job.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
There's already a company that is selling a product with a multi-touch sensor that doesn't require a camera behind the screen to see your fingers (which is how this rear-projected screen works) right here. It's a 15 inch LCD interface for controlling MIDI and OSC applications.
...I got nothing.
Why is there no manual (or instructions) necessary to know that touching the bottom
of the lava lamp adds heat? It doesn't in real life.
I envisioned this as having a screen in front of you, and a touch screen at your finger tips. Both displaying everything.
I don't think it would take much effort at all before you'd rarely have to actually look down and see what you were doing.
I also think that we'd have to keep an interface, but it could be more like OS X's menu (Or like how he changed things in world wind).
You would still need to have menus for some things, but for the most part you could remove a lot of the menus.
I also liked the idea of having a virtual keyboard. You could program up different varieties of keyboards (No more QWERTY vs Dvorak). You could have one for programming C/Python/Whatever where you could have common features inserted just like you were typing. (Yes you can do this with programmable keys, but not per application with visuals).
I think, depending on what it's like to tap on a screen all day. His would be great. And I can't wait to see it evolve and go into production.
For 95% of what I do this is just as good or better. And I am sure for another 4.8% of that you could think of ways to make it work. And the rest of the time, you can always have a bluetooth wireless mouse and keyboard at the ready hidden away.
Bring on the screens!
Its amazing how jaded some people here are. Anyway, I want this to be a wall in my house.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
I've never understood why doesn't work. It works for JPEG, GIF, etc. The reason video isn't accessible is because soembody, one day, decided that video is somehow fundamentally different than images.
Sure, it's neat - giant touchscreen with multiple points of contact and gestures that zoom and pan.
Yes, it's neat. Hey, we are geeks so that's the point!
If you want to see some applications that can benefit from it immediately, check out this video that shows both Google Earth and Warcraft III being run using this multi touch interface combined with voice recognition.
I've been using a multi touch interface for over a year now via my PowerBook's touchpad and iScroll2. Let me tell you that panning around applications by touching two fingers to the pad becomes second nature rather quickly and will make you very excited about this new technology.
I agree with the virtual keyboard problem. RSI would be worse on a system like that, not to mention the fact that touch typing would be near impossible due to no helper bumps for the F and J keys to tell your index fingers where home row is. I guess it doesn't matter since you would still be looking at the screen while typing but that has been my concern for other setups that have been pushing virtual (and usually projected) keyboards.
As for Jeff Han calling it a "no interface" interface and then proceeding on touching icons at the top of the screen... well he is looking at this as being a revolutionary way of interacting with a computer. In truth, this can be used right now to bring us an evolutionary interface that will make people's computing easier, more intuitive, and more productive.
And as geeks, we should always be impressed by that.
i remember using smartscene, by multigen, a 3D version of this 2D interface (head monted display, powergloves...) for a prototype of a game creation tool at electronic arts, 10 years ago...
... were done similarly but in 3D.
you could grab space between thumb and middle finger, objects between thumb and index. all rotation, zooming, moving object,
still, well done demo. excellent presentation skills !
I'd like to remind you that many of the things we take for granted today were considered impossible ideas only a few years ago. As Larry Ellison mentioned in one of his presentations (in 1995) "..in the last 20 years, computing power has increased a million-fold..." Of course, a lot of his predictions were based on the questionable assumption that computing power would continue to increase at the same rate. I think he may have under-estimated it. (At this point, that is probably as likely as over-estimating it.) Still, if he was right, your assumption that it is impossible to achive the goals you mentioned would be wrong.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Precision of the interface is not needed for CAD.
Everything is done with either numerical entry, or object snaps and constraints. Many 3D design packages actually involve doing a rough sketch, then adding constraints to the geomety, then adding the numbers.
An interface like this will make tool seletion faster, rough drawing faster, and numerical entry will be easy too. The only drawback is that it may be more difficult to select objects with less precise input.
I saw this video about 6 months ago, its hardly newsworthy. BTW - Nothing like Minority Report, they had to wear special gloves to use their "interface" ;)
No, really !
>"There has never been any technical reason for a computer to take more than a few seconds to >begin operation when it is turned on."
>I can name half a dozen;
I can name at least 1 where it doesn't. RISC OS. When set up right, turn on to desktop is under 1 second.
On linux, typically the main problem is that init is often written in sh, and does its work sequentially. Some people have tried making a C version of init, and/or just starting processes in parralel. It helps, a lot.
I must say, I am not easily impressed, but this has impressed me. I'm not jumping for joy or anything, but the ease of manipulation and the ability to use many different points of contact is definately intriguing if it's portable enough.
Now all we need is an API.
Student Manager - Take control of your education!
Shrug FC6 ran it fine - of course I took the extra 30 seconds to drop the Flash9 beta into my system.
if you put this flat or on a slight angle you'd get a sore neck from poring over it all day. OTOH if you put it up vertically, you'll develop some killer arms from holding them out unsupported all day.
Outside a kiosk or big screen for collaborative work - like a massive whiteboard... I'm sold on the coolness, but not the practicality.
no text
Couple this technology with a future successor to the Nintendo DS, and it could continue to take the DS into a more innovative direction!
/* No Comment */
The real significance of this is that any technique he uses in a video release for public view becomes part of the body of work of prior art that can be used to prevent future attempts to patent anything shown in the video.
When I first developed, but didn't patent, the graphical point of sale software paradigm in the mid 80's I began a fifteen-year effort to travel the world and show it to thousands upon thousands of people. As a result, none of the aspects of the graphical POS software user interface could be patented and the use of the software paradigm was adopted in virtually every country of the world free from the impediments of intellectual property assertions by anyone.
This is exactly what I also hope happens to this man's efforts - that people will also copy his ideas and build countless useful, intuitive touchscreen interfaces (yes, the display itself is the interface, by definition, even if he doesn't concede that it is) and the people doing this work will forever be unhindered by organizations asserting intellectual property rights on the interfaces that drive these systems.
Seem not to work when the lights went on, or why does he grap the screen at the end for no avail?
It's a beautiful and attractive technology. It'll be great fun for gaming and artistry. However, it's a *horrible* interface for computing -- because it misses the point of computing entirely.
Computers don't make tasks simpler. They don't make tasks for efficient. They don't make things easier. They do one thing and one thing only (as productivity tools), they make tasks more organized.
The whole point of one mouse pointer, one focus, one character cursor, is that your tasks is streamlined. One river moves faster than multiple streams.
Go ahead and author an invoice, a book report, an essay, or a contract with multiple focal points. Better yet, why don't you instruct someone else to make six changes at once.
A huge part of organizational skills is being able to separate and structure an abstract task into sequenced components. That's not computing, that's converting abstract thought into structured logic.
But hey, a straight example from the demonstration: resizing an image. Bigger-smaller, well done. But I want it to be 159 pixels wide. You can zoom in, bring up a ruler, snap and maintain, but that's just got to be more interface.
Oh, and good luck selecting another application without a menu-system.
I miss the good old solution. We have hundreds of languages on this planet. There was a time when command-lines and adventure games exposed natural language as an interface. Now that's intuitive. It allows for thousands if not tens of thousands of instructions, and also allows for interactive prompting, clarification, and response.
We prefer to direct other verbally, as opposed to physically. So I quote "Back To The Future II" when I say: "You have to use your hands?"
It's past time for /. to warn us when a link goes to a video. The last thing I want is to preload a page in a background tab and suddenly have loud music inexplicably start blaring at me. If pdfs deserve warnings, videos deserve far stronger ones.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
I have that multitouch keyboard (Fingerworks TouchStream) and I'm typing this sentence on it right now. It may be difficult for you to understand without ever having tried it, but this keyboard absolutely does help with RSI. The hardness of the surface doesn't even enter into the question -- the keycaps on your keyboard are hard, aren't they? -- the important part is how hard you have to press the key to generate the keystroke, which is essentially zero on this keyboard, far less than even light-touch traditional keyboards. On this keyboard you barely, lightly touch the surface to type a key, hardly hard enough even to hear your finger touch the surface.
Furthermore, the gestures on the keyboard are in fact very natural, certainly at least as natural and unforgettable as learning keyboard shortcuts. There are dozens of gestures, and all the easy ones can be learned in a mere minutes because they are intelligently designed, so that similar operations have similar gestures (eg copy paste cut).
I can't speak for the whole world, but this keyboard definitely revolutionlized how I use computers. Unfortunately the company is now out of business, their technology reportedly purchased by Apple, which of course will sit on it and never use it. Some people have claimed that the Mac's new two-finger scrolling on the touch pads is due to this technology, but if that's true then it's a sad trivialization of the potential of the tech. And frankly, my keyboard is a limited implementation of the overall multitouch gesture idea.
I posted this ages ago!! ( on Wednesday August 16) http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=194260&cid=159 23171
"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for it's children." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
This is moving offtopic, but yes, a transcript would be nice. It's not for those running Lynx, but more for those of us who surf without sound (at work, or at home because most flash sound is obnoxious). Or how about those who can't hear, hm? Sure, it takes time to type out what's being said on a video. You could stick that text in the article for those without Flash, and you could add it as captions under the video as it plays. If what you have to say is that important, spend that time. Your "lowest common denominator" is more likely text PAIRED with video. That is, if you can be arsed to do it.