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See-Through 3D Computer With Gesture Controls Gives Us a Glimpse of the Future

Posted by Soulskill on from the like-a-pre-cog-you-might-say dept.

silentbrad writes with this excerpt from Boy Genius Report: "Some believe a future full of massive, gesture-controlled computer displays like the ones seen in Twentieth Century Fox's Minority Report are an inevitability, and a prototype PC designed by an intern with the Microsoft Applied Sciences Group may be among the first steps in making that future a reality. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D student and MIT Media Lab research assistant Jinha Lee recently set out to change the way we interact with desktop computers. While progress has been made with 3D display technology, 3D has not yet proliferated in the personal computing space and Lee wants to change that. The end result of his work is a fascinating desktop computer with a transparent 3D display and a unique gesture-based interface that could change the way we use computers."

20 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Errors by DeadDecoy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now we can have the blue cube of death!

  2. Half cool by Ginger_Chris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Transparent screens still make me all fuzzy inside, but gesture based UI just doesn't interest me in the slightest. I want a UI where I have to move as LITTLE as possible. There was nothing on that demo that wouldn't have been easier with a mouse and a couple of mouse buttons more accurately, quicker and with less movement.

    1. Re:Half cool by slowLearner · · Score: 2

      True, but a few points.
      1. how long did it take to get the Desktop right? If you think about how long we didn't even have mice to interact with the computer and you don't have to move hardly at all if you don't use one of those.
      2.We need to start some place with this and 3D displays and how to interact with them have been around for a while but they will only be improved on when try to figure out how we work with them. This may not be as quick or intuitive as a mouse, but if people don't do work like this then we will be stuck with mice, track-pads and touch screens and the like. for ever.
      3.If it could be linked to glasses/contact lenses instead of a screen then I think it would make a lot more sense.

    2. Re:Half cool by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Funny

      Glad i'm not the only one that doesn't want to play Dance Dance Revolution just to check his email.

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    3. Re:Half cool by slowLearner · · Score: 2

      A bit like the first time I was present when somebody using hands free headset for their mobile phone, I answered 3 of his questions before I realised he was't talking to me. I am pretty sure he thought I was deranged as he left fairly quickly.

    4. Re:Half cool by martin-boundary · · Score: 2

      1. how long did it take to get the Desktop right? If you think about how long we didn't even have mice to interact with the computer and you don't have to move hardly at all if you don't use one of those.

      *Is* the Desktop right? If you ask me, it's not that great. For example, controlling windows by a couple of icons on the title bar seems very wrong.

      Suppose you have a piece of paper on your desk, and you'd like to move it aside. Do you pick it up always on the top side and handle it that way, or do you pick it up any old way you like? We should be able to drag windows by grabbing them anywhere in the middle of the client area! There's also no reason why the resizing is associated with the window border or even worse, one of the corners.

      Well, there is, because historically mice have had too few buttons (wonderful innovation, Apple!), so instead of having a physical button reserved for only one task such as moving or killing a window (etc), we've reserved screen space for those tasks. Except screen space is more valuable for actual applications, so we've shrunk the borders and window icons until they're just hard enough to hit that people still put up with it.

      Of course you can fix these things if you're willing to hack your window manager, but the vast majority of people are stuck with those choices nevertheless.

      2.We need to start some place with this and 3D displays and how to interact with them have been around for a while but they will only be improved on when try to figure out how we work with them. This may not be as quick or intuitive as a mouse, but if people don't do work like this then we will be stuck with mice, track-pads and touch screens and the like. for ever.

      You're forgetting keyboards, which are a lot more expressive than mice. I'm also not convinced that aping interfaces designed by hollywood to be visually interesting in movies is the way to go. But I agree that experimentation and crazy ideas are a good way forward at least.

  3. Demos by Zaelath · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Minority Report interface is cool because he's not doing work, he's creating a display for the audience. Hence, the only place I see gesture interfaces being useful is for Jobs 2.0 explaining why we should buy yet another incrementally better iPad, or Balmer showing how much Metro sucks for desktop use :)

  4. sweet by alienzed · · Score: 2

    now you can have your screen a mere 5-6 inches from your face! Honestly that looks hella awkward and nothing at all like minority report.

    --
    Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
  5. Gesture Computing Will Never Last by chrismcb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gestures as the main UI input will never last. They might work for a few things, like say doing a presentation. But no one will stand them for very long.
    Stick your arms out. Now hold them there, for as long as you can. I'll wait.
    .
    .
    How long did you last? Two minutes?
    My hands sometimes get tired just using the iPad, at an angle.

    1. Re:Gesture Computing Will Never Last by txoof · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gesture based input is lousy for coding, managing systems, writing books and pretty much anything that depends on the accuracy and specificity of a keyboard. But that doesn't mean that a display like this doesn't have its uses. Rendering and manipulating objects through this sort of interface would be amazing! Also, think about how clunky and absolutely STUPID touch screens were just ten years ago. Heck, you can still find the same old crap displays at airport checkin kiosks. Now think about how a good implementation in iOS/Android devices has totally changed the world of touch interface. The inovations of Apple, Android and others have given us totally novel ways of interacting with our data. I would have never voluntarily brought one of those old touch screens into my home, but I cary one around in my pocket every day now.

      This implementation might not be perfect, but it's a step in the right direction for novel forms of input. Once someone cracks an awesome 3D/Gesture interface that works well and doesn't make you feel like your stomach is going to push out through your eyes, it will quietly creep into ubiquity just like the (good) touch screens today.

      --
      This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
    2. Re:Gesture Computing Will Never Last by Skywolfblue · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, that's largely because most of today's gesture recognition is absolutely terrible at recognizing fingers precisely from a long way off.

      Waving arms is generally tiresome and not all that effective.
      But say, twitching a finger to flip through photos would be a lot easier then using a keyboard.
      A better version of kinect that can turn on the TV and load that DVD at the slightest wave of your hand? Awesome! now you don't have to look for that clunky remote anymore.

      However, this particular device with the screen in between the person and their hands, just awkward and plain ungainly.

    3. Re:Gesture Computing Will Never Last by bartoku · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Like everyone else who watch Star Trek The Next Generation, I have been dreaming about touch screen interfaces since the late 80s.
      Now that they are here...it was not worth the wait.

      I downloaded BlueStacks yesterday, installed my favorite Android games, and they are ten times better with a mouse!
      My fingers do not get in the way!
      Now if I only had a dual mice pointer I could do multi-touch

      I admit there is something innately pleasurable about a touch screen and feeling you are really interacting directly with the items on screen, but in the end it is mostly imprecise and frustrating.
      Sure some advances have been made allowing it to be tolerable, but occlusion of the screen by your fingers and the lack of tactile feedback mess it all up by design.
      As a result the iPhone has made it harder than ever to make a phone call and only slightly less frustrating to send text messages compared to a feature phone given that we used to have physical keyboards with a Blackberry.

      Touchscreens have their place and uses, they are not going away; but I look forward to the day we get our buttons back.
      Case in point is the Kindle Fire, who thought it was a good idea to exclude the external volume buttons?

      I am with chrismcb on this one, gesture computing only works really well in imaginary worlds like Minority Report.
      I mean why steal a concept from a movie that does not even properly justify the main character ripping his eye balls out? The real future is EEG and muscle computer control and muscle/nerve sensing control.
      Why bother making the gesture, when I can just think it?

  6. Pointless... by bertok · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's zero benefit to transparent screens in the vast majority of use-cases, but there's a huge downside: loss of contrast ratio. In an era where contrast ratios as high as 10000:1 are achievable, why would want to go back to something as poor as 10:1 or even lower? The only use-case where transparent screens might be useful is vehicle heads-up displays, but even there it's not quite the right solution, because the focal plane is all wrong. Take a look at vehicles that do have HUDs: they all use reflection with an angled surface because it allows for the use of optics that projects a virtual display at a focal depth much further out than the surface itself. A display embedded into a windshield would appear fuzzy and out of focus if you look out at the road through it.

    Most of the time, gadgets and technology in movies are designed simply to look cool, not for actual practicality, and the result is often pretty but stupid. The GUI in Minority Report is a great example of this: nobody can hold their arms up in front of them for more than a few minutes! Try it: get out a stopwatch and hold your arms out level for ten minutes. After the painful burning in your shoulders stops, take a minute and think about doing that for an eight hour workday. No matter how cool it looks, the mechanical advantage of our shoulders just isn't great enough to allow this kind of interface, and never will unless we all become cyborgs first.

    Just because you saw something in a sci-fi movie doesn't automatically mean that it's the "future" and only the required technology developments are holding us back. It's not like script writers and directors have some sort of personal revelation of the One True Future that we must all aspire to.

    1. Re:Pointless... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Heaven forbid someone try and use their arms constantly. I mean what would happen if suddenly someone were to have to hold a flute, conduct an orchestra, or even swing a hammer for more than 2 minutes.

  7. Future! by Zaldarr · · Score: 2

    Living in the future is so cool. Although it makes me wonder just how efficient this is. Looking at the video and how he switches programs, I've never really said to myself "you know, Alt-Tab could be a whole lot quicker and simpler." I can see the applications in things like CAD, gaming and such, giving another level of control to a 3D object represented on a 2D screen, and I know some designers who would love this stuff; but for the most part this is cool but not a huge leap in interaction for your everyday computing.

    --
    I write professional videogame reviews! http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/
  8. Heavy user of gesture-based interfaces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    For many years I've heavily used gesture-based interfaces--while driving!

    Hasn't had much of an impact though--everyone else still can't drive.

  9. Amazon checkout by Jeremi · · Score: 2

    Your shopping cart currently contains:

    [1] Microsoft 3D visualization/manipulation interface
    [1] RealDoll
    [1] 3-gallon tub of Vaseline

    Checkout now, or continue shopping?

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  10. Not a fan of transparent displays by fragMasterFlash · · Score: 2

    If this screen is going to be the only display on your workstation then the level of transparency needs to be variable and be fully opaque to prevent distractions when not interacting with volumetric UI elements. Ideally the display screen should not need to be transparent at all with the users hands rendered into the volumetric scene based on camera input.

  11. Heads Up Display by FairAndHateful · · Score: 2

    I can't wait until you can just buy a replacement windshield so you can get stuff done on your long commute! Or combined with your onboard GPS naviagation system with the augmented reality thing going on.

    It's transparent, so it's gotta be better than texting, right?

  12. cmon nvidia by strack · · Score: 2

    what i want to know is why nvidias 3d glasses dont have a few leds on them, so they can implement head tracking with a webcam in their stereoscopic 3d system. i wanna be able to lean left and right and have the 3d object on the screen distort and change so it seems like the screen is a animated hologram, much like johnny lees wii glasses demo, except with added stereoscopic depth.