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Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 2:41 am
by Guest
Check THIS Out!

Enjoy,
J.

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 2:59 am
by Guest
Jacky, wonderful. Imagine this as the interface to your library. Wow.

Best,
Chris....
www.lybrary.com

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 3:53 am
by Guest
Absolutely !
THis is great!
I wonder what the price would be?
Any idea if this would be available for the public?
I'm sure this would be very commercial ! next step for managing/viewing files!

All the best!
j.

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 4:05 am
by Jim Maloney_dup1
This was first introduced by Jeff Han (founder of Perceptive Pixel) last February at the TED Conference, and made quite a big splash. You can see that presentation here . Based on the newer video, it seems as if they've made some nice advances in the technology in the past year. I'm certain that this will eventually be commercially available, but I imagine it'll be a number of years before it is 1. available at a reasonable price and 2. accepted by consumers, since it is a change from what people are used to now.

Still, I really like it, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

-Jim

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 5:11 am
by Ian Kendall
There is a limit to how much I want one of those, but I'm nowhere near it yet...

Take care, Ian

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 9:31 am
by Dustin Stinett
It would be nice to see some practical demonstrations versus just the dazzling ballet of changing locations, sizes, and aspects of images on an impractical widescreen monitorwhich is all I see. That thing will never fit into a typical cubical (which are only getting smaller these days). What use would this be on the 17 flat screens in my office? What I want to know is, can I, with a mere touch of the screen, take a data source and drop it into an application template and have it update? Then take that, drop it into a distribution list so the appropriate executives and/or clients receive that report. I see nothing like that actually demonstrated in this video.

And why not demonstrate what Chris brings up? Touch the image of a book and it expands and you are then able to flip through the pages, pulling out those you want or perhaps activating a video demonstrating a sleight or whatever. Again, nothing of the sort is demonstrated here; just nifty image manipulations, whicheven though I might be wrong and the technology can do what Im envisioningtells me that the technology cant to any of that yet.

But it sure is pretty to watch.

Dustin

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 9:42 am
by Guest
Thanks for that link, Jacky. Wonderful to see, but I have to agree with Dustin's sentiments. It actually got a little boring in some sections of the clip ("okay, I know you can magnify the image...").

P.S. Finger painting would be a gas on this thing...

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 9:44 am
by Guest
OS and application software will need to catch up with this style of interface - and that's all it is.

On the plus side, you can get rid of your mouse and the exercise bike as well if your computer usage is a few hours per day! :)

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 12:05 pm
by Guest
Not even Olympic-level athelets could use this interface for more than a handful of hours a day, if that.

What is needed is smaller arm and hand movements, rather than larger ones.

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 12:43 pm
by Guest
Originally posted by David Alexander:
What is needed is smaller arm and hand movements, rather than larger ones.
Ahhhh.... you mean like the new Apple iPhone? First practical commercial application of similar technology

Bob

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 6:14 pm
by Guest
FOr those that don't know the IPHONE

and click on introduction...
(it's quite long but incredible technology...)
j.

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 6:52 pm
by Guest
With all due respect, Mr. Kahan--that sure looks like magic to me! :D

In all honesty: I have lived most of my life in this Land of Computers--This Valley of Silicon--and from what I have been able to find out, it actually IS magic. I am dead serious.

[Aside: I always can't help imagining how Leonardo or Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison or Einstein or Picasso would react to such a machine. Just picture the looks on their faces...]

It is a good thing they haven't been waiting for ME to invent that...

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 27th, 2007, 7:50 pm
by Guest
For those interested, here is an excellent article about this chap.
That dude is smart (understatement).

http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/112/o ... hthis.html

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 28th, 2007, 9:41 am
by Jim Maloney_dup1
Dustin,
The thing to remember is that what they are developing here is an interface, not an application. Doing things like dropping data into an application or reading a book would be specific to the particular application, not the interface. As an analogy, some Windows applications allow you to drag and drop items into their windows and will process them accordingly -- others will not. It's the Windows interface that allows you the ability to drag and drop, but it's up to the particular application to interpret what to do with the item once it is dropped.

In the video I linked to, he is working on a screen that would be more practical for a cubicle. Size is not be an issue here -- touch screens are available in many sizes. You probably already use a small one when you take out money from an ATM or an even smaller one if you use a PDA. The difference here is how the points of contact are interpreted, and the information is displayed. Also note that this will replace not only your monitor, but also your mouse and keyboard. That'll give you a bit more space to spread out a larger screen.

If you haven't checked out the video I linked, you may want to, as there is at least one thing he does there that I'm sure you will agree has practical applications (perhaps not for your business, but certainly for others). I'm talking specifically about zooming into and entering a 3D map, as well as providing different views such as rainfall or vegetation. But again, the actual application came from (I think) NASA -- they just applied their interface to it to allow for the zooming/rotation via hand gestures.

You are probably right about one thing, though -- they likely can't do some of the more practical stuff yet, simply because the software hasn't been written for the interface yet. They are exploring what can be done with the interface and therefore are developing software which shows off different features of that interface.

-Jim

Re: Not MAGIC but SOOOOO Cooool !

Posted: January 28th, 2007, 11:52 am
by Guest
Jim,
I think the problem that Dustin alludes to is that this sort of interface is inefficient and error prone.

Drag and drop is a perfect example: it was a design challenge and it looked really cool when it was demod but it turns out people arent very good at it. Which is why the first major release of Windows (3.0) included Solitaire: so people could learn to drag and drop stuff without losing their data.

One of the main reasons that the Mac OS had such a great find function (and why its such a focus in Windows) is that people often really drop stuff while they are dragging, and then cant find it.

This sort of interface is fine for presentations (whiteboard, digital paste up) but for productivity applications, give me a powerful interface over a clever one any day.