The Future of Computer Interfaces

(Thanks to Kevin Ilsen for pointing me to the video.)

This is absolutely amazing. With a few simple gestures, this is way beyond the “ancient” computer interfaces we use today, and is nearly exactly like what was seen in Minority Report, which is an excellent film despite Tom Cruz’s presence.

I was thinking about this recently. We complain about the mouse, but the mouse is incredibly intutive to use. All our children were computer-mouse-capable by age 2.5. Watching Naomi is interesting, though. She can use the computer mouse without difficulty. She’s learned to do pretty well with the keyboard, also, good enough to play World of WarCraft.

The Xbox controller, however, still befuddles her. She’ll try to play Halo 2, but end up with her character stuck up against a wall. We discovered yesterday, however, that she did much better with the “Superman: Returns” game, which offers more freedom of movement, and didn’t require her to stay alive by fighting.

Back to computer interfaces. One of the things that hasn’t “arrived” yet, despite the fact that our current computers are more-than-capable, is voice activated software. It just hasn’t caught on, which surprises me. Is is simply too complicated for most users? Is it merely too annoying for most offices?

Thoughts?

3 Replies to “The Future of Computer Interfaces”

  1. I know I feel very strange using voice-recog software at work in cube land! It’s just odd to hear someone speaking commands, out of context, to their computer, especially when they’re right over a 4-foot tall wall from you.

  2. My first comment was made before I watched your attached video… that is wonderful and amazing! Isn’t it interesting how two major implementations of multi-touch interfaces have come out in the last week or so (this example and Apple’s iPhone).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *