Minority Report-ing for Duty Soon?

Image by gunthert via Flickr

Seems like today is filled with examples of science fiction becoming reality and adding to my WITII? list of “What if the Impossible Isn’t?”  Below is the latest example of some significant advances in gesture based computing, Minority Report style.  Be sure to follow the link to the full article for some great videos to show you how this works.

For me gesture based computing is but one of the many exciting ways we are finally closing the gap between ourselves and the “machines” we interact with.  These kinds of far more natural based interfaces which also include things like touch based interfaces, voice controlled and direct mind/brain controlled interfaces. 

The iPad Is Step 1 In The Future Of Computing. This Is Step 2 (Or 3).

by MG Siegler on Feb 16, 2010

In 2008, I attended a meeting in Madrid, Spain that featured the coolest demonstration I had ever seen. The problem was that I wasn’t allowed to talk about what I had seen because the company was still in stealth-mode. More importantly, several governments, including the U.S. government were still exploring various parts of the technology for next-generation computing systems, so parts of this were very confidential. By the end of that year, Oblong Industries had revealed itself, but still little was said about its project. Finally, people are starting to talk about it.

While we may not have been at this year’s TED conference, apparently, Oblong was. And apparently, it wowed the crowd. And it should have. If you’ve seen the movie Minority Report, you’ve seen the system they’re building.

No, really. The co-founder of Oblong, John Underkoffler, is the man who came up with the gesture-based interface used in the Steven Spielberg movie. And now he’s building it in real life.

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• Oblong Dazzles More Than Just Me (feld.com)
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Comments

[jamessmell]

The one thing about this scene in Minority Report that still bugs me is when the 'pre-crime cop' uses some portable media to transfer data from one system to another on the other side of the room. Really?