The Next Computer Interface Revolution

I was happy to see that the convergence of touch screens and big-screen TVs is progressing nicely. NYU professor, Jeff Han, has been busily advancing his research and has shown what the next computer interface will be. Take a quick 3 minute view of <the video>.

One can talk about holographic helmets, such as the air force and army use, but these seem far off as viable commercial devices, but the hardware technology for what is seen in the above video is already on the market. What Professor Jeff Han has essentially done is give us an interface mash-up, subsequently heralding the end of the mouse-driven interface.

I think this will carry the transition period between the mouse-driven computer environment (where we are), and the speech driven environment (where we want to be), though touch will never go away as an interface option, since one can do ten things at once with fingers, but only speak one word at a time with that flapping hole in the front of one's head.

Eventually, I would guess that the technology of projected keyboards [1] [2] will be expanded too. Perhaps one will step into (or lay triangulating devices around) a hot zone and then move the hands around in the air (as opposed to moving the hands around on the surface of the screen as Han is doing here in this video at a TED talk seminar).

O.