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Mainstream implementation of touch and multi-touch capable devices is the “next move,” if you will. But first, we need more refinement in the technology and standardization of marketing & protocol.
Advertising must explain all the features, while hardware must enable touch out of the box, recognizing and supporting a minimum of four input points. There needs to be innovation in manufacturing & operations. Companies must strive for highest quality in sensor design, integration, and software to deliver the best user experience. Definitions must be set to distinguish “direct manipulation” from “multi-touch” and from “gestural interactivity.”
It is going to be a while. Amongst other issues, are the barriers of cost and simplicity. Touchscreens offered by 3rd-party hardware vendors must be purchased separately and often require special software & drivers that ramp up the cost. Ideally, touchscreens would be inexpensive monitors connected via USB or VGA and work with built-in Windows or Mac OSX functionality. Additionally, touchscreen adoption will be driven in part by the development of useful apps.
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Word is out that Windows 7 supports multi-touch, which is a huge step in the right direction. When will Apple get in the game (post-Snow-Leopard)?
Touchscreens will become affordable eventually, no doubt. Retrofitting existing displays is an option for now. After all, the major difference between a touchscreen and an LCD display is that one lacks sensors. PQ Labs makes touchscreen overlays that you can mount onto your gigantic LCD or plasma TV monitors to enable multi-touch. Their product demos were pretty impressive.
While working on a group project, I noticed how ill-suited mobile computers were for collaborative use. Even with computer display connected to an external projector and another mouse, it was impossible for more than one person to make edits when pulling together a PowerPoint presentation. Only one set of actions went through via vocal instructions to a laptop user, regardless of the number of ideas tossed out that could have been explored. This hampered productivity.
Imagine trying to have a conversation with five of your best friends that you haven’t seen in a year (yay!) except only one of you can speak at a time with no interruptions or exclamations. This is no way to work nor socialize.
I wished, then, for an operating system that would support a minimum of dual input (at least two mice, two cursors on one screen) for multiple-user single-tasking, AKA “group conversations” on a single workstation.
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Computing hardware has advanced by leaps & bound and become increasingly powerful, efficient, and reliable–whereas mainstream graphical user interfaces have remain unchanged, for the most part.
Technology has allowed us to amass an immense amount of data in digital age (satellite imaging, radiology scans, genome sequences), but no user interfaces exist which can visualize, analyze, and present data as readily as multi-touch platforms can. Other than being downright cool, touch is ideal for consuming/presenting information. Because it is a more natural interface, it increases user productivity.
I’ve been drawn to it from the start.
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Zooming in and out of photographs is direct manipulation using two fingers of one hand, a bare bones gimmick for ads; it doesn’t scratch the surface of what true multi-touch (more than two input points!) is capable of.
For example,Perceptive Pixel offers pressure-sensitive multi-touch displays that can sense an unlimited number of simultaneous touches with accuracy and precision. Their displays come bundled with the right software and have applications in geo-intelligence, broadcasting, medical imaging, data exploration, digital storyboarding, industrial design…the list goes on.
At IDC2009, I had the privilege of meeting Steven Batiche (Director of Research, Applied Sciences Group, Entertainment & Devices Division – Microsoft Corp.) and listening to his presentation on advances in surface computers. When he pulled up a slew of videos demonstrating conceptual and working prototypes from the Microsoft design labs–I was utterly awestruck.
Up until then, I had been steeped in Apple’s powerful marketing campaigns and lost sight of the obvious: that Microsoft is an immense international entity with resources that, if leveraged appropriately, could surpass Apple a hundred times over. Microsoft’s research & development rocks, as far as I’m concerned. They are doing some unbelievable experimentation with surface computers (think Microsoft Surface but 100X more awesome).
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How do I begin to describe what has the feel of pure fiction? It’s better if I show you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvtxupQmRSA&fmt=18
This is the Productivity Future Vision montage from Microsoft Office Labs . Though a concept video by all rights, it is very much grounded on research and is a plausible articulation of what to expect by the year 2019. There is more artistic license on the software side, but the actual hardware is all too real. Many of the “concepts” have been prototyped or are somewhere along in development.
From the video, we see:
- Speech, text, and cultural translation.
- Low cost, multi-touch, edge-to-edge displays; flexible, transparent displays.
- Software clusters brought together in a natural user interface.
- Active workspaces with rich graphics, achieved with ambient projectors and thin OLED displays.
- Large displays allowing for different user inputs (touch, mouse, stylus).
- Mobile devices with modular form factors that can access sensor networks and information resources. Image analysis and projection abilities.
- Seamless secure data sharing and integrated workflow tools between devices and across networks.
Check out the coffee mug at 4:12 – it’s to die for. Nothing is impossible! The music makes me feel very optimistic.
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You’ll see technology becoming more invisible, but working harder for you in both your work and personal life. Imagine a future where creating a document with a colleague will be as easy as having a conversation. Making connections with people and your content will be secure and seamless. Relevant insight and information will be delivered proactively and in context to the task at hand.
Mobile devices will be more powerful than desktop computers of today. Technology will connect you with the information you need, when and where you need it, whether it be your local coffee shop, an airport, or a roof top in Hong Kong. Software will be there to make getting things done as efficiently as possible in new ways that are more natural.
["Productivity Re-Imagined" via Microsoft Office Labs]
The conference is in less than two weeks and I am ecstatic! I will be pondering a future involving portable and surface computing with interactive displays in the days leading up to IDC2009.
Here are the majority of the presentation topics that I will be covering in future posts:
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Market and Industry Overview
- Touch in a Touchless World
- The Impact of Wireless Social Networking on the Evolution of the Display Industry
Advances in Touch Technology
- The Advantages of Force-Based Touch Technology
- MultiTouch LCD Cell – Tough and Modular
- Multitouch and Some Food for Thought: Designing The Best User Experience
- Capacitive vs. Resistive Multi-Touch: A User-Centric Comparison
- DuoSense: The Hands-On Computing Revolution
- Multi-Discipline Multi-Touch Development at Drexel University
- Moving from Mechanical Buttons to Capacitive UIs: A solid-state world of posibilities
- How Multi-Touch, Immersion and 3D Tracking Technologies are Revolutionizing Interactive Displays
- Getting to the Heart of Touch
Designing Experiences
- Measuring the Effectiveness of Digital Signage Using “Gaze-Tracking” SMS and Other Interactive Technologies
- Tactable: Designing Multi-Touch Experiences
Applications and Case Studies
- Sensitive Object Acoustic Technology: The Next Revolution of Touch
- Trends in Interactive Gaming
- Facilitating Human Interaction with Interactive Devices
- The Evolution of a Revolution – The Next Generation iDrive
- Interactivity in Self-Service Applications
Emerging Technologies
- Making Scents
- Robotic Interactive Displays for Music Entertainment
Technology Spotlights
- Haptics for Interactive Displays
- Trends in Immersive and Holographic Interactive Displays
Multi-touch interactive displays, the choice interface of futuristic cinematic endeavors, now stand the forefront of the consumer electronics and multimedia entertainment industy. Highly intuitive user interfaces have been rapidly commercialized and integrated into daily life.
Stop and think about. Watching the news (CNN’s eight-foot “Magic Wall” courtesy of Perceptive Pixel), withdrawing cash from an ATM, making calls on a mobile phone, casting votes on Election Day, paying the bill at a restaraunt (courtesy of Microsoft Surface), getting directions with the latest GPS navigator, or gaming on a portable device. . . touch screens are ubiquitous.
But this is only the beginning, since touch is only one form of interactivity. Single-chip 3D engines & sensors coupled with multi-modal, multi-touch LCD displays will revolutionize the user experience in both computing and gaming. Display and technology developers already have holographic interactivity, haptics, and gestural interfaces (think supercharged Nintendo Wii) in the works. It’s all uphill from here.
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The Interactive Displays Conference 2009 is being hosted at the Hilton in San Jose two months from now. I’m quite excited about being able to attend and getting a market overview straight from industry heads! IDC2009 will assess advances, as mentioned above, and discuss the challenges of interactive display development and integration. Register here.
Great Expectations:
- Updates on surface computing from Microsoft
- Latest applications for interactive displays from uWink, Ecast, BMW and Flextronics
- Trends in interactive gaming technologies from 3M Touch Systems
- Multi-touch and the design of user experiences from Wacom Technologies
- Emerging holographic interaction technologies from EON Reality
- Design, affordability, interactivity of touch screens with Pixel Qi’s Mary Lou Jepsen, founding CTO of the OLPC Initiative
- Strategic analysis of the rapidly emerging interactivity industry from iSuppli
[Update] Looks like Jeff Han, founder of Perceptive Pixel [view official demo here], will be making an appearance for a keynote address!
Apple and Palm kicked a lot of dirt at each other last week — acting Apple CEO Tim Cook flatly told analysts that “We will not stand for people ripping off our IP” when asked specifically about competition like the Palm Pre, and Palm responded with a similarly-explicit “We have the tools necessary to defend ourselves.” At issue, of course, is that the Pre employs a multitouch screen and gestures almost exactly like those made famous on the iPhone — and if you’ll recall, Steve Jobs introduced multitouch on the iPhone with a slide reading “Patented!” To top it all off, the past few days have seen a number of media outlets proclaim that Apple’s been awarded a “multitouch patent” without so much as a shred of analysis, instead hyping up a supposed future conflict. That’s just not how we play it, so we enlisted Mathew Gavronski, a patent attorney in the Chicago office of Michael Best & Friedrich, to help us clear up some of the confusion and misinformation that’s out there — read on for more. [via Engadget]
Jeff Han founded Perceptive Pixel to develop and market the most advanced multi-touch systems in the world. Above is the official demo. All I have to say is, HOT DAMN – that’s the stuff of dreams!
Imagine coupling Perceptive Pixel’s systems with Intel’s Minority-Report-esque 3D translucent touchscreen wall at CES 2009!!! I can’t wait until multi-touch user interfaces go mainstream.
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I guess I should also mentionMicrosoft Surface, the first commercially-available surface computing platform as of 2007.
Surface computing is:
- Direct Interaction: Users can actually “grab” digital information with their hands – interacting with content by touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard.
- Multi–Touch: Surface computing recognizes many points of contact simultaneously, not just from one finger like with a typical touch–screen, but up to dozens of items at once.
- Multi–User: The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather around Microsoft Surface together, providing a collaborative, face–to–face computing experience.
- Object Recognition: Users can place physical objects on the display to trigger different types of digital responses; in the future, this will include the ability to transfer digital content.
