Disruptive Conversations

Why are we stuck using a keyboard and a mouse?  Why is the dominant paradigm for our computing?  Why can't we do things another way... perhaps like Tom Cruise's character did in the movie "Minority Report?"

Well, for some time now I've wanted to post about the demonstration done at TED 2006 by Jeff Han of a NY university.. the video is just far too interesting.  But then along comes Jeff Pulver yesterday pointing to this video:

It seems that this new company, Perception Pixel, is founded by none other than Jeff Han of the TED demo! Pretty cool stuff. (Do check out the video of the TED demo as well.)  Now it's just a question of when we might ever see this type of thing actually available...   I'd like one.  I'd far rather just be using my fingers to point then using the mouse.  And for typing... well, why not have the keyboard popup where you want it to be on the screen?  With large enough screens, you could have several keyboards. I don't know... maybe the ergonomics aren't good enough.

Anyway, it's good to see this kind of R&D going on... and hopefully we can see it out in the commercial world some year soon.