In the video above, John Underkoffler talks to enthusiasts at TED about the need to move away from the traditional, one machine for one human with one mouse and one screen flat display, to building machines that aid humans in the task of creation in multiple dimensions. He has taken a big step in this direction working at his company, Oblong Industries. He first displays a luminous room where all objects display and sense, and an optics prototyping workbench. Then he shows how he has brought the Minority Report data interface to life as a point-and-touch interface called g-speak. With this he demonstrates the apps for manipulating and analyzing pictures, combining traditional tabular data with 3D geospatial information, video editing, and utilizing explosive views of tools and objects using 6 degrees of control with a hand.
The set-up shown in the video seems bulky and non-dispersible but John Underkoffler claims that will quickly change. Oblongs aims at ubiquity, with g-speak making its way onto each lap-top, desktop, onto household items like microwaves, ovens, TVs, and then onto vehicle dashboards. It seems the g-speak has come a long way from merely making science fiction real at the MIT media lab, and has leaped into the realm of our everyday life. Although some of these ideas are being integrated by other companies, like the Microsoft’s Kinect, I think Oblong’s creations will be indispensable because of the co-located input and output space and the innovative apps.
Carol Perkins
2 comments
Andrew Kun says:
August 12, 2010 at 5:21 pm (UTC -4)
Exciting!
Sal says:
August 16, 2010 at 2:44 pm (UTC -4)
Bob is just jealous because he doesn’t own an upscale pizzeria