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The Mouse Vanishes
countertrolling sends in a clip from Wired that begins "...researchers at MIT have found a method to let users click and scroll exactly the same way they would with a computer mouse, without the device actually being there. Cup your palm, move it around on a table and a cursor on the screen hovers. Tap on the table like you would click a real mouse, and the computer responds. It's one step beyond cordless. It's an invisible mouse. The project, called 'Mouseless,' uses an infrared laser beam and camera to track the movements of the palm and fingers and translate them into computer commands... A working prototype of the Mouseless system costs approximately $20 to build, says Pranav Mistry, who is leading the project."
"Cool" but not necessarily "useful." Case in point: the mouse in its present form gives tacticle feedback, which lasers do not. Likewise with keyboards: the physical feeling of pressing keys matters a lot.
Despite what they might have told you, humans do not have servomotors in their hands. We are pretty bad when it comes to making precise motions without any tactile feedback. This is why, for example, radial menus are so much better than linear menus -- you do not require highly precise motion, just a general direction.
Palm trees and 8
This is exactly why I hate tapping on track pads. I keep my fingers on the mouse, on the trackpad, and my keys, depending on what I'm doing. It slows your response time to have to keep your finger hovering above the clickable surface. Virtual keyboards will never work for speed typists. They MAY work for situations on the fly where your only alternative is using the touch-screen on a tablet, but in most situations, a tactile keyboard and mouse provide greater efficiency.
I came, I saw, She conquered.
You mean like the Minority Report interface. Well, guess what, Spielbergs science advisor for the movie, John Underkoffler of MIT's Media Lab actually further developed the idea.
I've seen those presentations. While incredibly cool to watch, I'm still puzzling over the practicality of it. While everyone assumes that we can improve upon the mouse and keyboard, we still haven't done it yet. I won't be so rash as to say that they cannot be improved on, just that we're going to have to work awfully hard at it. I'd make a comparison to the bicycle. It's one of the most perfect transportation machines ever devised by man. People-powered, easy to operate and maintain. The Segway was pitched as being a bicycle replacement and while being incredibly cool, it most certainly could not be that. Expensive, requires power, would be on the sidewalk with people instead of a bike lane in the road, a perfect case-study in overengineering.
A minority report interface makes you wave your hands around like a conductor in an orchestra. That would have to get old very quickly.
Of the future interfaces, I think they still need a lot of baking.
1. Voice control. Getting better but still balkier than doing it yourself. My cell phone still can't even do hands-free dialing properly. We might finally see this implemented properly with GPS navigators, exactly the kind of tool you want to use without taking your hands off the more important task. And while the latest version of Dragon is amazing, it still can't take the place of
2. Touch screen. I still won't be convinced until they get rid of the grease factor. Would also prefer some tactile feedback. They're supposed to be doing stuff with making the screens buckle or vibrate in response to touch.
3. Pupil trackers. Still far off but has the potential of replacing the mouse if they can ever get it working right. Might still wind up as something useful only in specific cases -- you use a pupil tracker on your handheld but a standard mouse on your desktop.
Those are the only practical improvements I know of on the horizon. Gesture interfaces like for video games, that looks like it may be fun for entertainment but I don't know if it will ultimately be of practical value.
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