People interact with computers all day for all sorts of purposes. Long gone are the days where a computer was merely a tool to process data. We view photos, send emails, chat online and do millions of other tasks completely distinct from computing per se. The only tools available to us are the mouse and the keyboard. Neither tool is particularly intuitive, nor does it resemble any natural item in any real way.
A long time ago, people only used the command line. Then, graphical interfaces suggested a pointing device, and so, in 1964, the mouse was invented. In 1981, a mouse first shipped with a personal computer. Since then, human-computer interaction has seen almost no significant innovation. Hardware has followed Moore’s law, continuing to double every 18 months. Software has had more innovations today (I’m guessing). The internet has gone through two entire birth-death-rebirth cycles. Yet we are stuck with this keyboard/mouse tandem.
Computer Science research agrees with me, and there has recently been some very cool work in the area. Jeff Han, a researcher at NYU, presents a very natural interface based entirely on a touch screen. You can touch the screen with both hands, many fingers, of multiple people’s hands at the same time. There is no mouse or anything, you just naturally interact with the screen. He presents in this video much better than I could.
The talk illuminates more than just the unbelievable technology involved, though. Han provides a somewhat obvious but essential insight: “There’s no reason in this day and age that we should be conforming to a physical device.” (4:02) His broader point suggests a(nother) complete revolution in the field, and I think that eventually we will look back at the current state of personal computing and laugh.
Apple’s new iPhone uses a similar touch screen, and seems to create a new way of interacting with cellular phones and mp3 players. It’s not out yet, but soon. Soon. Microsoft just announced a table-top touch screen that uses very similar (actually identical, as far as I can tell). Both companies have such vast reaches in their respective areas that this may actually mean that research will enter the mainstream. Han’s technology might be a year and half old, but he doesn’t get the same attention as The Big Two do.
The issue’s interaction with public media thrills me the most. David Pogue of the New York Times explains all three technologies very clearly. At the end of his post, he touches on the possible applications this technology might permit. Those new apps are why I want to do what I want to do. Imagine your email or your music with no mouse. No clicking send or pressing ctrl-enter. No, applications, relatively stagnant, get a whole new set of abilities and constraints that will require a whole new way of relating to machines.
We’re nowhere near where we could be, but all this attention certainly does not hurt.
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