multi-point touchscreen, minority report anyone? Options

[hobgoblin]

http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/~rdivecha/archi...orld_of_sm.html

i figured some here dont read slashdot (hell i tought i did and still i allmost missed it).

[SL James]

Bah. I forgot the video doesn't show up on this computer. N/m.

But, yeah. Awesome.

This post has been edited by SL James: Feb 14 2006, 06:29 AM

[nezumi]

Yeah, plus, if you use them for eight hours straight every work day, you end up with rippling biceps and the ability to hold your arms out with books stacked on for hours!

Seriously, cool, but almost completely useless.

[JRDobbs]

Ah, how fortunate that soon Wesley Crushers from all over the cosmos will be able to play inexplicable touch-screen video games in order to (attempt to) gain entry into Starfleet Academy.

I am hot on the GIS applications, though.

[mintcar]

I imagine it will be extremely useful for 3d applications. Animation for instance. I've fooled around with Maya and things like that, and judging from these demos the increase in maneuverability over a mouse in that area would be tremendous.

[runefire32]

[nezumi]

The excessive hand and arm movements required (especially in a Minority Report style) and the fact that there is no 'resting position' makes the device exceptionally difficult to use over long periods of time. If it were small, about the size of a mousepad, or set up like a touch drawing pad in place of the keyboard and a separate, normal monitor, it would be significantly more useful. If you don't believe me, try keeping one hand touching a spot on your monitor for eight hours and see how much you like it when you're done.

Cool tech, not especially innovative, and of limited use in its current incarnation. I'll stick to a tablet for my graphics and a mouse for everything else. It will have SOME uses like it appears there, but not a lot. Don't expect it to revolutionize home computing until they take ergonomics into consideration.

[runefire32]

Oh never said or meant to imply it would revolutionize home computing.

I see it more something thats going more towards the rout of music and graphics. Thing is I don't envision it as standing up like a monitor. When i envision how the thing will be used i think more along the lines of laying out at the same angle as your keyboard leans upward when you have the legs out.

I mean think of what you can do with it just for the music industry (depending on the cost of the technology). Whereas you have sliders on boards, you now have a monitor with virtual sliders you can adjust with differnt displays and such. Showed the video to a guy i work with who also produces music and his eyes just lit up thinking about what he could do with the thing.

But the same thing with touch screens. Touch screens have never ever become part of home computing. You see them in buisness' all over the place but I've never run into anyone that at their house had a touch screen monitor. I've seen Wacom tablets and tablet pc's. But even Tablet Pc's don't work like touch screen monitors. Touch screens have prety much always fallen in the realm of buisness'. And i don't see why something like this would sudently break that mold...not that i wouldn't mind having one.

[nezumi]

I work in IT and my wife is an artist. We own a wacom artist's tablet (actually we now own several small pieces of a tablet thanks to a small boy in the house). We have touch screen directories on every level of our building which are constantly being maintained. I personally have avoided tablet PCs because my handwriting is so terrible, but several of my workmates have them.

I could see it being used as a synthesizer as you said, but I'd say that's pretty niche. I could also see it being laid out like a keyboard, but then also having a normal screen (it's easier to watch a screen that's at eye level than one around your fingers). That would be pretty cool, since you could have it run like a normal keyboard most of the time, but then change to your desktop for easier mousing, a map for doing map stuff, so on and so forth. The big thing limiting it is that touch screen technology continues to be overpriced and fragile, so I doubt we'd see that in our lifetimes, truthfully. Tablet PCs could benefit from it, but I don't think that sort of functionality would allow for very significant changes from what we're already seeing. I really DON'T think artists would benefit, because touch screens aren't as accurate as other tools like tablets and mouse cursors. Our fingers are too clumsy, pens still block the screen, and touch screens oftentimes suffer from sensitivity problems (that said, I do believe the artists from penny-arcade sometimes uses a tablet PC to do his art). But again, that's also reapplying the technology in other ways than what was demonstrated.

[runefire32]

True enough. More i think about it more i see the music industry benefiting from this more than anyone at the current technology level. Though I do think at the very least its a critical step forward. Its been years since the original touch screens were invented, bout time we really had a jump forward to have screens that can manage multiple contact points at the same time.

[Butterblume]

Basically, this tech works with touchpads and doesn't need a touchscreen. Selecting mutliple objects might be a tad easier with touchscreen, but that's about it.

Personally, i love my touchpad and won't change back to mouse. How much cooler are these touch pads gestures ;).

[runefire32]

[Butterblume]

Granted, it's not suited for certain (or perhaps most) types of games.
You'll need an additional input device then. I've always had a joystick connected, for killing those puny rebels in the name of the emperor ;).

[nezumi]

I hate my touchpad too, only a tiny bit less than I hate my nipple (yes, I'm waiting for that to be cited out of context). I agree, I don't know how much more useful it would be being able to touch two spots on it at once. It'd be like having two mice.

[hobgoblin]

the more i think about it, the more im leaning towards a solution somewhat similar to star trek TNG. basicly you have one screen flat or semiflat, acting as a input area, and one more or less vertical, as a screen.

as you highlight something on the screen the input area would change to match whatever it is you have highlighted. yes a bit like hotkeys, but with the added twist of them being visual rather then memorized. ok, so one could in theory use the optimus keyboard but being able to put sliders and similar dynamicaly on the input surface as needed would take it to the next level i think.

and i must say that i liked their idea of storing the "desktop" as a area of empty space, with windows being zoomed in and out by highlighting and then dragging two points outwards or inwards.

the issue is tactile feedback tho, but i have a feel that it can be worked out somehow.

and someone on slashdot pointed towards a device called the lemur:
http://www.jazzmutant.com/

[Churl Beck]

Just imagine the interactive porn...

Nevermind, you'd need one hand free for that.

[Liper]

personally I'd love to see some of the games you could make with that, specially kid games that were educational, little kids LOVE things you can touch.

[Ranneko]

[nick012000]

Now, this is how I imagine AR, but with DNI instead of finger control.