
Minority Report Interface Is Real, Hitting Mainstream Soon   - jamesbritt
http://singularityhub.com/2010/02/17/minority-report-interface-is-real-hitting-mainstream-soon-video/
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petervandijck
Oh the one where you have to wear funky gloves and wave your arms around a
lot? The wide arm movements are a dead give-away. It's MADE FOR MOVIES. Not
for actually using it.

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hugh3
Oh, I don't know. When I'm using my computer I often think "Man, I wish I were
standing up and making huge arm movements right now so that my arms would get
tired within twenty minutes"

I'm tempted to say "At least it would be good for games", but frankly the Wii
has failed to revolutionize gaming as much as folks thought it would -- after
waving your arms around for a bit the novelty wears off and you go back to
wanting to mash buttons.

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wtallis
It sure seems to me that the Wii has revolutionized gaming as a mainstream
social activity, even if it hasn't really affected "hardcore" gaming.

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hugh3
Has it, though? Or was it a brief fad which lasted until everybody got bored
of Wii tennis?

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ThomPete
Here is the thing.

There is currently no advantages to Minority Report interfaces that isn't
better done by the computer itself.

A Minority Report type interface requires algorithms that multiply your
actions way more than any system currently available.

It's kind of like doing a combo in Tekken or some other figthing game.

It's valuable if you can control real time with additional powers but we are
not even close to getting there.

The kind of advantages that 3D interfaces gives cannot yet be harvested in 99%
of the cases.

Perhaps controlling a spaceship or a satellite but in most cases it's not
better it's just different.

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corysama
Nintendo's PowerGlove taught me an important lesson 20 years ago: Even if hand
tracking becomes perfect, it doesn't matter. What matters is that holding your
arms up is exhausting. After a minute, you are resting your elbow on
something. After two, you are resting your wrist on something. A minute later,
you really wish you had a mouse.

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frankdenbow
What is equally interesting is what can be done by scanning neural activity
and essentially letting people control games/physical objects without any
physical input. Check out the Emotiv headset for an example
<http://www.emotiv.com>. Their headset is $300 and is shipping now.

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bokonist
I'm surprised the article wasn't talking about the Microsoft Kinect interface.
Kinect is hitting the mass market in a month and the UI is completely
navigable just by waving your arms. It doesn't have enough precision to do
something like move files around, but it's still really cool.

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dshankar
Define "mainstream." This gives the false idea that such an interface would
take over the way humans normally compute and interact with machines.

This interface is nowhere close to the level of replacing the traditional
keyboard/mouse or the emerging multitouch tablet.

People simply cannot interact with textual data quickly enough and would
easily get tired with that interface. I can code at my keyboard/mouse for
10-30 hours straight without much fatigue. I wouldn't last 30 minutes on that
thing.

Nevertheless, it's really cool and I can't wait to see future interface
designs. Just don't make the lofty claim that it will be "mainstream."

(just a personal opinion)

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hugh3
You can code for 30 hours straight without much fatigue?

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dshankar
Coffee + 10 minute breaks every 20 minutes of code. Weekly/monthly hackathons
help condition your body for this ;-)

I obviously crash immediately after. I'm usually delirious and black-out
(after TechCrunch Disrupt for example).

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wildmXranat
So, did this have any movement since ... February ?

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jamesbritt
Um, yes, and this might have been the better link to submit:
[http://singularityhub.com/2010/10/22/new-video-of-mits-
minor...](http://singularityhub.com/2010/10/22/new-video-of-mits-minority-
report-interface-g-speak/)

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bradleyland
This same series of videos and content has been making the rounds on new
aggregator websites for quite some time now. One of the videos was published
over two years ago:

<http://vimeo.com/2229299>

This tech is cool, but it's not going anywhere fast because its use isn't
practical.

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swah
And I can't even find a good wireless mouse.

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Groxx
The second comment covers the interface quite nicely, by linking to this:
<http://okcancel.com/comic/3.html>

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swah
This reminded me of Andy Wingo (<http://wingolog.org>), a Guile hacker who
works with/for Underkoffler (Oblong).

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zoomzoom
Apple's strategic purchase?

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konad
<http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/gorilla-arm.html>

The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology
despite a promising start in the early 1980s.

