Soon: nothing between you and your device

More than two decades have passed since Scotty tried to use a computer mouse as a microphone to control the Macintosh in Star Trek 4.

Since then, users of personal computers continue to live under the tyranny of the mouse, windows, icons and drop-down menus invented by the Xerox Palo Alto research center in the 1970s and popularized by Apple and Microsoft in the next decade.
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In the past year, however, the emergence of the Nintendo Wii and Apple iPhone has broken the technological innovation in the direction of interaction between people and computers.



Both devices expand the idea of ​​direct control of objects on the screen and mix this possibility with visually invisible physical software that breathes new, amazing life onto a computer screen. In the Wii, a wave of the hand can hit a tennis ball in cyberspace; on the iPhone, moving a finger can move a photo across the screen as if it were paper on a table.

The idea of ​​directly manipulating information on a computer screen is almost as old as graphic terminals, see for example the year 1963, in which Ivan Sutherland created the Skatchpad drawning system for his doctoral dissertation at MIT. to develop scientific and applied disciplines around this “bridge”, which was called the human-machine interface. A huge amount of research has been done on pointing devices, alternative keyboards for entering information, voice recognition technologies, and even sensors that capture and interact with the waves of the human brain.

The new is a union of more powerful and less expensive computer hardware and young designers who came of age after the appearance of the paradigm of the user graphic interface of 1970-80s.

The new generation is “mostly up to 25,” says Joy Mountford, who until last month was vice president of design innovation and advanced development at Yahoo. “They come from the world of information flow, and they are multitasking and are on an extraordinary level.

One of the most exciting examples of new impressive achievements in web navigation is the PicLens program from Cooliris, a startup of 10 people.

This is a plug-in for web browsers that tries to make it possible to navigate, search and share information while viewing images, videos and other digital information, which is increasingly on the Web.

Now PicLens offers the insertion of small icons into each photo, which will allow users to find out that they are on Facebook, Google or Flickr and can be viewed using the program. Clicking on the icon sends the user from a normal web page to a fascinating space.

The program, in contrast to the flat browser window, provides the user with the effect of flying through three-dimensional space that looks like an endless corridor of pictures. In the future, designers from Cooliris are planning this feature also for text and video.

“I’ve been amazed for a long time why computer interfaces haven’t changed in 20 years,” says Austin Shoemaker, a former software engineer at Apple Computer, and now COO of Cooliris, “People should not think of a computer interface as but how about their continuation or expansion of their mind. "

Some of these ideas emerged in the 1990s at MIT Media Labs. In 2002, John Underkoffler, being a student there, implemented the idea of ​​direct management from the movie Minority Report. (In the cinema, Tom Cruise controls the transparent wall-mounted computer display with hand movements.) Later, the idea of ​​a multi-touch display, where images could be moved or scaled by direct touches, was implemented by two researchers: Jeff Han, a computer science researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University and V. Daniel Hillis and Bran Ferren, researchers at consulting firm Applied Minds, who developed the world’s “touch table” arts.

The evolution to more impressive displays is due to the emergence of faster operating computing equipment, as well as the emergence of a huge number of more powerful programming tools. These tools provide visual effects that previously were available only to the strongest programmers, for a wider audience with only an initial level of knowledge.

“The old paradigm is losing ground,” said Paul Mercer, senior programming manager at Palm, “Previously, you had to be the same visionaries and technologists like Michelangelo, but we are overcoming this milestone.”

In reality, more powerful graphics-oriented software has turned into a palette for a new generation of program-oriented artists. One new programming language, Processing, is a new Sun Java extension designed specifically for students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists interested in programming images, animation, and interactions. It was extensively used in Design and the Elastic Mind, a digital art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The voice, too, is finally beginning to play a significant role as an interface tool in the new generation of consumer-oriented wireless devices. Many technicians now believe that searching for and chiseling tiny mobile and PDA keyboards can be replaced by faster voice commands that can display maps, texts, or other data on a small screen.

"We are on the verge of creating something as progressive as touch, with only a voice," said Mike McCue, general manager of Microsoft's Tellme subsidiary.

The overall objective of all new technologies will be a new kind of management.

“If you think what will happen next after the web browser, here it is,” said Bill Joy, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, a venture capital firm that invests in Cooliris.

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