..::B:R:A:D::..

Over the weekend I saw a link on Digg pointing to “Multi-Touch Interaction Research“. Rather than interacting with a touch screen with a single pointer they are working on interfaces that allow you to manipulate objects on the screen with more than one finger/pointer at a time.

After watchcing the video on the site it reminded me of the BumpTop Prototype video that made it’s way around the web a little while ago. In the same vein is “lowfat“, which looks equally interesting. There is also, Akamaru another physics engine prototype I ran across earlier which has a demo of a dock application where the icons behave with real physical interaction.

Obviously none of this stuff in it’s current form is “productive” or “serves any real purpose” (I love the idiots that see stuff like this and say “looks fun but doesn’t look like it’s usable”…it’s called a prototype for a reason!) but I can already envision a good mixture of some of this technology with a more contemporary desktop environment and some of the effects from Xgl/compiz on linux.

Imagine switching virtual desktops (sorry Apple, I mean “Spaces”) by grabbing the side of the screen and dragging the cube around like in Xgl but with your hands. Or better yet, with one hand holding onto an open application and the other flipping the cube around to place that application on another desktop. How about sorting through your file manager by physically manipulating your files on the screen, where the other files around react like true phyiscal objects. Or maybe changing the current applcation with focus by pushing/pulling applications to the background/foreground…the possibilties are endless! It makes me wonder what kind of interface my 1 month old son will use even by the time he gets to high school…

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Technology. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.