Those white boxes are position sensors that allow the WIND system to turn your gestures into robotic commands.
Of all the ways you could command a robot, turning your body into a game controller sounds like the most fun. Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo), part of the Chiba Institute of Technology, has developed an upper body suit that does just that. The Wireless Intelligent Networked Device (WIND) uses several small sensors, each with 3D positioning, to translate user motion into robotic commands. WIND communicates with a robot via Bluetooth signals, eliminating the need for a direct wired connection. All sensor information is controlled by a System in Package (SiP) core which consolidates a PC’s worth of robot command capability into a single chip. The fuRo system uses gestures, not one-to-one motion capture, to dictate commands. In other words the user doesn’t raise a hand when she wants the robot to raise a hand, she raises a hand when she wants the robot to dance. It’s a very cool looking control scheme when you see it in action. Check out the videos below to see for yourself.
CES heralded gesture controls hitting the mainstream. Here, Toshiba's Cell TV gets put through its paces. Just wave your hand to select a channel from the floating sphere of television.
The modern age of electronics is turning everyone into royalty. We have court jesters (TV), scholars (computers), and scribes (office software) at our command. Soon, these servants will even be watching our slightest gestures and voice commands to heed our will. Hitachi announced its TV with gesture controls more than a year ago. Both it and Toshiba were touting “TVs without remotes” at CES 2010. Microsoft announced the XBox 360’s Project Natal, a system that uses the gamer body as a controller, at E3 last year. All of these technologies are scheduled to arrive at market by the end of 2010. Though the specifics differ among devices, each of these technologies would allow a user to simply gesture (sometimes speak) commands to their electronics. Change volume, browse through movies, or drive an arcade race car…all you need is your hands. The end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 will see the first real attempt to get consumers to throw down their remotes and throw up their hands in jubilation. Will we want it? Check out some of the videos below to see what you’re buying.
Lumino blocks interact with Microsoft Surface to extend digital information into a 3D environment.
It never fails: give scientists a new bit of technology and they’ll find a way to use it to play with blocks. Maybe it’s all the Legos we enjoyed as children. In any case, researchers at the University of Potsdam’s Hasso Plattner Institute have developed Lumino, a system of blocks that interact with Microsoft Surface. The table sized touchscreen has had many interesting features, but never true 3D manipulation. Lumino changes all that by letting Microsoft Surface see through the shapes it uses. Each block is identified by markings and these markers are transferred through lower level blocks to the touchscreen via embedded fiber optics. This lets a user stack up to 10 layers of Lumino blocks to create a 3D shape that can interact with Microsoft Surface’s software. Developers suggest it may have powerful applications in architecture and design. Check out the video from New Scientist after the break.
In some households, fighting over the TV remote is a raging nightly battle. In mine it’s more of a cold war detente. Either way, by the end of next year Hitachi (NYSE: HIT) may take the conflict to a whole new level. Working with Canesta and GestureTek, the Japanese electronics giant has created a line of television sets that will be able to recognize a viewer’s hand gestures. Instead of a remote control, you can just wave your hand in the right way to change channels or volume. Check out the video after the break to see Hitachi’s demonstration at CES from earlier this year.
From tablet PCs to iPhones, designers are giving us new ways to interact with our electronic devices. The future of the human-computer interface is likely to be much more tactile and intuitive than our current dependence on keyboard, mouse or remote control. With gesture controlled television, Hitachi and its partners aren’t just removing the necessity of a remote, they’re blurring the lines between the real world and the digital one. Right now, the space between you and your TV is just empty air, but in a few years it could be where you visualize a virtual remote control, or where you interact with your stereo, or the space in which you can clap to tell your laptop to go to sleep. Already, we’ve seen how any hard surface can be turned into a simple input device through acoustics. Imagine what will happen when every open space could be used as a digital interface. It could be an amazing way to integrate electronics into our lives, or it could be a horribly confusing way to crowd our personal space. Probably both.
Rotating and tilting the Q2 Cube radio is all you need to do to change stations or volume.
As devices become more and more complex, they have the potential to become too difficult for humans to control. Hence we have the new paradigm in technology – simple interfaces for complicated machines. Exhibit A: the Q2 Cube. This new digital radio from Cambridge Consultants and Armour Group can stream internet radio stations but is controlled simply by tilting or rotating. If you rotate the cube onto four of its faces, the radio plays one of four preprogrammed radio channels. Tilting the cube back and forth alters volume. It’s a simple set of controls for a cool product that’s set to hit UK stores for the winter holidays. You can even sign up to win one for free.
Engineering an intuitive way to control a machine isn’t easy. Designers barely seem to agree on what a power-on button should look like (thank goodness for that circle with a line in it). The more powerful a machine becomes, the simpler the interface humans may need so that they can focus on managing the tasks performed by the machine. The iPhone has an absurd list of capabilities (acting as a drone remote control being my favorite) but it works using a simple touchscreen. Future human-computer interfaces may rely on humanity’s sense of kinetics to keep things simple. Why mess with a bunch of buttons and dials when you can just shake or tilt the machine to control it? Read More
BumpTop new multi-touch desktop lets you manipulate files using simple gestures.
Do you ever wish you could just reach out and move the icons on your computer desktop around the same way you do with pieces of paper on your physical desk? BumpTop has created a software system to allow you to do just that. Their version of a computer desktop has icons that appear as objects with weight and shapes that can be manipulated, letting their interaction seem much more intuitive to users. Today, BumpTop announced that it has taken the concept to the next level, and will provide multi-touch support for Windows 7 and MS touchscreen. CEO and Co-founder Anand Agarawala explains the original concept of BumpTop in a TED video after the break. Then, we have the multi-touch approach demo video right below.
So there’s really two products here, the current BumpTop system which you can upload onto your PC right now via their website, and a future touchscreen enhanced version that will likely be released to coincide with the adoption of Windows 7. Both versions are trying to make files on your desktop more like real world objects, like so many other experimental human-computer interfaces we’ve discussed. The files can collide with one another, be stacked in piles, etc, just like pieces of paper. At the same time, you don’t want to lose the benefits of digital files: easy sorting, changing relative size of object on desktop, etc. The trick is to make the digital space act like a physical space in some areas, but still have the digital utilities where you need them. In the TED video you’ll notice that while Agarawala can use a mouse to throw files around like paper, he also can click to bring up menus that allow for sorting and other digital techniques. That sort of hybridization approach to human-computer interfaces is a powerful paradigm we are likely to see dominate the future of computing. Read More
For decades our options for interacting with the digital world have been limited to keyboards, mice, and joysticks. Now with a new generation of exciting new interfaces in the pipeline our interaction with the digital world will be forever changed. In this post we will look at some amazing demonstrations, mostly videos, that showcase new ways of interacting with the digital world. Enjoy!
First up we have a video of MIT’s David Merrill demonstrating a technology called Siftables at the 2009 TED conference. Siftables are cookie-sized, computerized blocks you can stack and shuffle in your hands. By arranging them in different configurations or tilting them at different angles you can do math, play music, spell worlds, pour virtual paint, and more. The implications for hands on learning and manipulation of data are fantastic! We have not seen any word on how/when this technology will be commercialized, but we hope it will be soon!
Next we have a technology for making music called Reactables. By arranging and manipulating computerized blocks on a special table, musicians are presented with a completely new way of creating and interacting with music. As seen in the previous video, Siftables are also capable of music composition, but reactables are unique in their singular focus on doing only music. Whereas the siftables can perform many functions, the reactables are specialized for one task only, and in the coming years we can expect them to far outstrip the ability of Siftables when it comes to music. Orginally created by Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona Spain, Reactables have recently been spun off into a private company that is hard at work commercializing this exciting product. For those that are really interested in this technology, there is a competing effort from Sony that may be of interest:
Kommerz from Austria brings us the mixed reality interface. Using representative objects in the real world a person is able to manipulate objects in 3D space on a computer screen. The possibilities for a new gaming interface look especially promising with this technology. Check it out:
This next demo from Sony has been around for many years, yet it is still very cool. Why isn’t this technology finding a commercial market after all these years? We have no idea.
Jeff Han from NYU demonstrates the capabilities of a multitouch interface at the TED conference in 2006. Since then he has started a company around the technology called perceptive pixel. This technology was recently used on CNN for presidential election coverage.
Speaking of multitouch interfaces, Microsoft has a technology called Microsoft Surface that is similar to Jeff Han’s technology, but in typical Microsoft fashion the company just doesn’t seem to get it. Check out first a video from Microsoft that showcases the technology, followed by a hilarious parody from sarcastic gamer that shows how misguided Microsoft’s vision is:
The Khronos Projector is an interactive-art installation allowing people to explore pre-recorded movie content in an entirely new way. From the official site: “by touching the projection screen, the user is able to send parts of the image forward or backwards in time. By actually touching a deformable projection screen, shaking it or curling it, separate “islands of time” as well as “temporal waves” are created within the visible frame. This is done by interactively reshaping a two-dimensional spatio-temporal surface that “cuts” the spatio-temporal volume of data generated by a movie.”
Sixthsense from MIT is a technology that we have already covered in depth previously. Check out our detailed review for more information:
The world of interactive technology is literally exploding. There must be several technologies we have overlooked in this review. If you know of any that we missed, please let us know in the comments and we will try to add your suggestion to this post in an update.
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