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10/GUI – Desktops Without a Mouse, Operating Systems without Windows (video)

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by Aaron Saenz on February 18th, 2010
10/GUI concept

The 10/GUI concept calls for a screen-sized touch pad on the desktop. Seems like a step sideways, but it could be the next generation of human computer interface.

Teams of developers are racing to construct the next great human-computer interface, and most already have a product to peddle. Clayton Miller is still working on an idea. His 10/GUI is a group focused on conceptualizing the system that will replace the mouse and keyboard as the most common user interface. Their proposed interface is unlike a tablet computer, or a gesture controlled system. 10/GUI wants a display size touchpad on the tabletop so that all ten fingers can interface with the computer without overlapping the screen. Coupled with this new hardware comes a new software paradigm. 10/GUI avoids a two dimensional (or even three dimensional) windows-based digital space in favor of a single dimension of frames. Sort of like your entire screen becoming a task bar. 10 finger touchpad and linear arrangement of applications makes for a really cool approach to the standard problems of desktop computing. Take a look at the following video and judge for yourself whether this is genius or just madness.

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Apple Confirms Mystery Device – Sends Out Invitations

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by Keith Kleiner on January 18th, 2010
apple tablet invitation

Here's The Invitation - Where is Mine!

Apple sent out invitations today to select media outlets, inviting them to “come and see our latest creation”.  The event will take place at 10am Pacific Time on Wednesday, January 27 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.  Will this latest creation be the rumored tablet device, or will Apple surprise us all with something completely different?  In just nine short days we will finally have our answer.

AppleInsider recently reported that select app developers have been told to prepare their apps for a larger, higher resolution device.  From the post: “developers were asked to prepare their apps for a demo next month by making them support a full-screen resolution, rather than the fixed 320×480 pixel size of the iPhone and iPod touch screen. The source said applications that can accommodate the larger screen size will run “just fine” on the new device.”

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Light Blue Optics’ Projector Turns Any Table into a Touchscreen (Video)

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by Aaron Saenz on January 13th, 2010
light blue optics light touch projector

The LightTouch uses IR to track motion and turn its 10.1 inch projection into a touchscreen.

How many hours a day do you spend staring at a flat surface? You probably don’t think of it that way, but TVs, computer screens, mobile phone displays – these are just boring flat surfaces until we place images on them. So why not forget those devices and keep the images? Light Blue Optics (LBO) is using holographic laser projectors to transform ordinary surfaces into interactive displays. Their Light Touch device projects a 10.1 inch screen and uses an IR light and camera to track finger position in that area. LBO recently announced at CES that it is working with Microsoft, Adobe, Toshiba and other partners to support Light Touch with their products. CES also named the device an as innovation honoree for the year. Check out a brief demo of Light Touch at CES in the video from BBCBlueRoom after the break.

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Here Is Why The Apple Tablet Will Be Awesome

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by Keith Kleiner on January 5th, 2010

The Apple Tablet Will Be Awesome

The hype and attention surrounding the impending launch of the Apple tablet is a fascinating marvel in the tech industry.  The product has not even been launched yet – Apple (AAPL) has not officially confirmed that the product is even in development – but nevertheless the entire tech community from media to consumers is absolutely enthralled by the Apple tablet, or islate, or whatever you want to call it.  And yet despite all of the hype, only a small few, such as Paul Buchheit, have given a decent explanation as to why we would want this mystical tablet when we already have smartphones, netbooks, and desktop computers.  In this post I will propose some ideas about how and why the tablet concept is going to differentiate itself from its computing brethren and revolutionize the world.

Too big to fit in your pocket, too wimpy to compete with a desktop computer, too limited without the ability to make phone calls or use as a handheld camera.  Thats what people are saying about the tablet.  Boy are they missing the point!

Without further ado, here are ideas about capabilities and features that a tablet will uniquely offer as compared to all other computing devices today.

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Behold the Ring Wall, World’s Largest Touch Interface (Video)

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by Aaron Saenz on December 10th, 2009

It took more than a year and a half to build, covers 90 square meters and can handle more than 80 people at once. The Ring Wall, developed by Sensory Minds and installed in Nurburg, Germany, is the world’s largest touch interface. The 45 meter long touch wall stands two meters high and uses 15 high definition projectors to display more than 34.5 million pixels while laser light plane illumination tracks users’ touches. On top of the mammoth screen is an even larger LED wall which is over 400 square meters in size. That LED display contains just 5.8 million pixels and is for crowd-wide presentation, not interaction. Considering its absurd scale and technological might it’s only fitting that the Ring Wall resides at a motor race track called the Nurburging. I don’t think you could really understand the size of this thing unless you were there, but check out the video after the break anyway.

Yeah, that little thing next to the bottom, that's a person.

Yeah, those little things next to the bottom, those are people.

Back in September I was agog over the touchscreen wall at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas. Little did I know that the Ring Wall had already been in operation for three months by that time. It’s almost unfair to compare the two, by the way, the Ring Wall is easily twelve times the size of the Las Vegas screen. Still, sound may be better at the Hard Rock Cafe as the Ring Wall only has 30 directional speakers to stretch over it’s entire length.

As for the purpose of the Ring Wall…intimidation of Sensory Mind’s competitors perhaps? I could see such displays serving well in large international museums, or as a means of sharing information in airports and train stations. Sensory Minds seems to have filled Ring Wall mainly with motor sports information, but it’s hard to tell. Eventually, technology like this, or the building-wide projectors we’ve discussed earlier, will transform all public spaces into enormous outlets for digital data. In twenty years when you’re browsing the internet by tapping on the sidewalk remember that it all started with the appearance of the Ring Wall.

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PhotoelasticTouch Combines 3D Shapes With Touchscreens

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by Aaron Saenz on December 1st, 2009
Squeezing the rubber nose makes the face go cross-eyed.

Squeezing the rubber nose makes the face go cross-eyed.

The average touchscreen leaves you petting or clawing at a flat surface, but the new PhotoelasticTouch system gives you something to squeeze. Produced by researchers at the University of Electro-communications and the Japan Science & Technology Agency, the photo-elastic system uses transparent rubber shapes that sit on a LCD screen to act as input devices. Touch a 3D face and the screen changes the eyes so look at what you’re doing. Pick up a rubber shape and twist it to pour virtual paint onto the surface. The developers presented their innovation at SIGGRAPH earlier this year and let attendees play with the new interface. It’s a pretty awesome concept and you can check it out in the videos from TheKeyIdea blog after the break.

I’m not sure if squeezably soft 3D rubber screen-toppers count as haptics devices, but there’s certainly something rewarding about having any sort of tactile interaction with a computer. As we enter into the next generation of human-computer interfaces, we’re going to see a lot more emphasis on physicality. Humans, after all, are often tactile/kinetic learners.

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Muscle Sensing Enhances Microsoft Surface (Video)

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by Aaron Saenz on November 2nd, 2009

How Love is Like A Computer #234: Reading someone’s mind often means paying closer attention to their body.

Sensors on the forearm translate muscle movements into control commands for Microsoft Surface.

Forearm sensors translate muscle movements into control commands for Microsoft Surface.

Researchers at the University of Washington, University of Toronto, and Microsoft Research have developed a system to control a computer through a device that reads muscle movement. Using eight sensors attached to the surface of the forearm you can now communicate basic commands by moving your fingers and hand in stylized gestures. The team of developers has adapted the new system to work with Microsoft Surface, the advanced table sized touchscreen. We’ve got a great demonstration video of the muscle control hardware interacting with MS Surface after the break.

It seems like every few days, a tech company finds a new way for us to control computers. These next generation human-computer interfaces all seem to have one goal in common: increasing the physical intuitiveness of computer control. In some cases, the physicality is expressly required by the device. The HAL cyborg from Cyberdyne relies on electromyography (EMG), just like the new muscle sensing control technology. However, tactile interfaces are becoming more popular purely as replacements for keyboards and mice, especially in casual environments like the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas. For those of us who have adapted well to typing and point and click commands, the new physical interfaces may seem imprecise. To some extent they still are. Yet when paired with improved algorithms for speech, gesture, and facial recognition the new line of human-computer interfaces is getting ready to connect us directly to our digital world. Keyboards and mice, like so many middle men in our evolving economy, are being cut for efficiency.

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