This is just too damn cool for words.

http://oblong.com/

[Iceman]
Well, that is pretty fuckin' ninja.
[/Iceman]

It's an idea in search of an application.

Well lets see...

Computer Aided Design (Architecture, Drafting, Engineering ect.)

Air Traffic Control

Co-ordination of military units

Image Analysis

Electoral maps (I'm looking at you John King)

Inventory Management

and that's just off the top of my head. I don't think people will have a problem finding things to use this for.

Gesteral operations are of limited practically. Learning semaphore so that you can do what you once did with a mouse and keyboard only fifty times slower isn't exactly a good idea.

VR gloves, likewise, have been around for a long long time. They can be used to manipulate virtual objects in the 3d space, but the only applications in which they are superior to the mouse are 3D modeling and very crappy video games. For the stuff that people actually do every day, keyboard shortcuts and 2d pointers are so much more efficient that it isn't funny.

Just from watching the video though it looks like the input system is remarkably intuitive. When he was selecting objects it looked like he was pointing at them like a 5 year old playing cops and robbers and bending his thumb for example. That's something you could train a monkey to do. Sure it would take practice, and it's obvious that it doesn't have all the bugs worked out yet (as evidenced by the awkward spinning of that box), but then again if we were really all that concerned about pure practicality QWERTY keyboard's wouldn't be standard.

It's like a touchscreen, only a lot more exhausting.

Impressive.

Honestly, I don't think any interface where you have to wave your arms around is going to become the productivity tool of the century. But you can bet that CNN etc. will pop a big hard boner over the chance for anchors to shift screens around with their hands, like magic. You saw what a big deal they made out of that hologram, which wasn't even a hologram, but just some real time digital streaming which could have been done with a green screen, only that would be too inexpensive...

I think that for a gesture based interface to be worthwhile, it needs to be performed from a seated, hands-down position. The gestures need to be slight, not exaggerated, and accuracy can't be a big factor. It would be a million times more frustrating to try and point at an icon with your finger when you could just click it... So a gesture based OS would need to be extremely smart at interpreting what the user wants from relatively vague gestures. But when I can one day accomplish complex computer tasks by flicking and waving both wrists and pointing and wiggling point sets of fingers, I will be a happy camper! I think the ideal system would feel like conducting a symphony. But it's a long way away from mr. pointy-wavey there.

The smart way to go is with an intelligent voice-activated solution capable of automatically executing a variety of tasks on voice cue.

HAL, check my email.
HAL, google amputee midget porn.
HAL, open the pod bay doors.

sadly, i fear that will be even more data intensive then the solution shown here...

this because a computer could very well read a odd sound as a command...

me, i want to see a multitouch (10+ points) surface that can be tilted somewhat like a drawing board.

this really shows that augmented reality is possible to make or achieve at some point:D god bless this, games like WoW and CS will be so much more fun now:D but also it will make the work for us shadowrunners alot easier:P

no really, I think this is cool and scary at the same time;P but lets enjoy this now that we know what might be coming soon:)

The Opera Browser already have a voice recognition system that's used this way. "HAL" is even one of the presets for the activation of voice commands. However it will only recognize the commands you've pre-entered (it won't understand "amputee midget porn" on the fly).

Back on that gesture interface, it sure is fancy and all, but I'm still waiting for demos showing something useful other than picture manipulations. There's this one that shows uses for video games which could be cool, but for most other computer uses I'm still waiting.

Ok, I can see why you'd want 10 touch points, because you have 10 fingers. That sounds like an awesome interface, especially if it was dual screened -- you'd have a lower monitor where a keyboard would be that displays a context-sensitive control interface, then an upper monitor for output and viewing.

But... why the +? Are you planning to use your nose or tongue? Or, like, a pointer attached to a hat on your head? Or maybe you have more than 10 fingers?

So that more than one person can work it.

that, and being able to put items on the screen without loosing the potential for touch typing on a onscreen keyboard

G A M E S ! ! !

Though it really isn't efficient for most computing tasks, some things (like games) could see a lot of use from something like this.

Also, it makes the Shadowrun concept of augmented reality that much more believable. An OS like this doesn't require a keyboard, so it's much easier to work with on the fly. You could even use it to create a virtual keyboard visible only through your goggles

but if you pre program this and other obscure porn types your friends ruteenly search for, then thid could be impressive or entertaining

Too large an investment (in space and money) for home gaming, and far too awkward to use for anything else. Games are designed to work on hardware initially intended for other purposes, the keyboard is not optimal for gaming but is used because people have them for other reasons.

Gaming piggybacks on mundane activities and nobody is going to buy this for mundane activities. Consoles have to be small and affordable to make money these days, look at the Wii's sales against its expensive competitors. Sure the dedicated gamers have a 360, or a PS3, but even dedicated gamers are still going to balk at paying thousands for the purchase and installation of an entire room designed to act as a gesture sensitive system.

Heath, it should be a given that the general public would not be willing to pay thousands just for an entertainment system, and I am sure the people advertising this OS realize it as well. This is something you will probably see Microsoft incorporate into one of their future operating systems. Microsoft has already stated that they will be moving away from the old fashion methods of interacting with a computer (granted it will be over time and several OSes). Plus I can clear see how this technology would be useful all around, but we will most likely not see it for another 10, maybe 15 years.

::sheds a tear:: It's a beautiful thing ::sob::

Actually.. It didn't hit me til the second user started to interface with it, but it reminds me of the Wii. All be it, way more interactive(as you couls rotate 3D objects) But still seeing the multiple cursors moving reminded me of that.