A New O’Reilly Book by Dan Saffer coming in Fall 2008
There has been a lot of buzz lately about the holographic 3D modeling in the movie Iron Man. It’s not that far in the future, really, as Sketch Furniture shows. If they had a holographic projector, they could see what they were sketching (like we do in the video).
Technology Review article on Cubit, a $500 dollar multitouch MS Surface-like kit. (Surface is supposed to sell for about $10,000.)
Addie Wagenknecht, a fellow at Eyebeam, designed Cubit in an attempt to “demystify multitouch.” She and her collaborator Stefan Hechenberger “wanted to prove that anyone could build [a multitouch table] if they had a few simple things,” she says. In addition to making Cubit software available online, Wagenknecht is selling various do-it-yourself kits that include parts and instructions, aimed at people with a range of engineering skills. Putting together a personal multitouch table could cost anywhere from $500 to $1,000, depending on the type of hardware used, Wagenknecht says.
“Samsung has recently patented a system of cell phone and mobile device control which responds to a user’s gestures. It doesn’t do this on the display as how the iPhone currently does, but as recognized in the space around the handset courtesy of the handset’s front-mounted camera.”
via Ubergizmo
Gestural remote control designed for the kitchen (where you might have messy hands) by student Joris Van Gelder for Bang & Olufsen. The hole in the middle of the device is an interesting twist.
Loving the ghost hand in the video.
I’m looking for interesting examples of documentation around touchscreens or interactive environments for inclusion into the “Documenting Interactive Gestures” chapter. I’d love it if you could contribute!
I’m looking for:
Email me a dan -at- odannyboy -dot- com if you have a sample you (and your company/client) can share and could be published.
Cnet’s Crave reports that Kazuhiro Taniguchi, a researcher in Osaka University’s Graduate School of Engineering, has developed a device called the KomeKami Switch (Temple Switch) that allows users to control their iPod music player via eye winks. “The KomeKami Switch can be clipped to eyeglasses or headphones and will respond to various combinations of winks by remotely controlling play, pause, replay, and skip functions of the iPod. The gadget uses infrared sensors and a microcomputer to detect differences in the movement of your skin when you wink.”
T-Mobile unveiled this transparent (!) wall interface at their CeBit 2008 booth a few days ago. Brief Wired article on it:
So how did the companies keep everyone’s attention? By letting people play with touchscreens, and believe it, nothing is hotter right now than touchscreens. In the T-Mobile area, an extended Media Wall was placed in the middle of the space, but the most interesting part about it was its transparency, which we haven’t seen before. We’re not sure if this was a Han Wall or not, but it seemed to work as a good advertising model.
Microsoft officials have been talking up the company’s plans to introduce more consumer-focused form factors of its Surface multi-touch tabletop. They’ve said future iterations of Microsoft’s Surface multi-touch technology will be available as part of next-generation PCs, cellphones, desks, kitchen counters and even walls in consumers’ homes over the next five to ten years.Microsoft hasn’t been talking as publicly about even more offbeat Surface form factors, such as a sphere. But sources say the company is showing a spherical Surface prototype around campus lately.”
Crystal ball anyone?
BBC Video about large touchscreen technology that responds to a variety of styluses: “Anthony Uhrick from Next Window describes a new multi-touch display that uses light-sensors to allow users to “hold” their work in their hands.”
From a Wired article on the GSMA:
Most apparent at the show, the biggest mobile conference in the western world, is that nobody is doing touch screens properly.
Sure, Apple didn’t invent touch screens, but it was arguably the first company to do it right. Sony Ericsson, no latecomers to the touch game, showed myriad new phones today, and of all of those we tried out, the UI was invariably clunky, counter-intuitive, or downright hard to navigate.
Flashy, animated icons are great, but not if they come at the expense of usability. It feels like everyone is scrambling to add touch capabilities because they feel they have to, ease-of-use be damned. The point of the iPhone is being missed: It’s a pleasure to use because of the fancy UI, designed from scratch to be intuitive, attractive and easy.