Multi-touch interfaces have been one of the themes of this blog over the past 18 months or so. In fact, they’re becoming so commonplace it soon won’t be worth my mentioning them any more. However, before that day finally arrives, here’s a quick look at some recent developments.
Within the last couple of weeks Microsoft have shown their Touch Wall. Here’s Bill Gates driving it:
And here it is being demo’d by Microserf Ian Sands, with a good deal more technical detail included towards the end:
Well in theory it’s a great idea, right? (I’d love one to teach with, for example.) But you’d have to ask how viable a system this is at the moment, especially when Sands admits that you can’t even edit a Word document on it! It also looks slow, glitchy, and just plain clunky. Notice how the slides don’t sort properly when Bill Gates gestures them aside—sometimes one doesn’t go at all, and then two jump the next time—and note the problems Sands has in selecting the right mode in the toolbar. “The calibration is a little off,” he says. Yes, quite.
Compare the Microsoft Touch Wall with the fluidity and sophistication of Jeff Han’sPerceptive Pixel products:
Back in January I had a good look at the iPhone and Jefferson Han’s work on multi-touch interfaces (here and here). And for those of you looking to gain some kind of contextualization on this fascinating and highly topical area of interface design I’ve recently come across Bill Buxton’s historical overview.
I casually mention these only by way of introduction to Microsoft’s (ahem) “new paradigm in computing”, the Surface computer. Here’s one of Microsoft’s own promotional videos:
For something a little more illuminating, and that briefly includes schematics showing the innards of the Surface:
And for the inner geek, here’s a full 18-minute test-drive of the thing:
Yes, it’s pretty impressive (although the thought of that bog-standard PC running Windows Vista hiding inside is a bit off-putting). Some thoughts:
It’s not clear how the security issues will work. I mean, have you ever transferred data from one device to another without generating security prompts? As these will be public devices it seems inconceivable that security will not be a huge issue, and yet not once do we see anyone even inputting a PIN number in any of the videos. As if!
Will all manufactured objects become ‘tagged’ in the near future to allow interfacing with surface computers?
If so, will there develop a universal tagging language that will be understood by all “surface-compatible” products?
Can we predict a new job description: Surface Designer?
I do think there is a certain inevitability about this type of product.
The ability of the Surface to act as a ‘docking station’ for mobile devices calls to mind one of McLuhan’s Laws of Media: if you push a technology to an extreme it flips over into it’s opposite. In other words, as mobile devices have gotten smaller and yet more powerful, the tendency for miniaturization flips over into single large device that many of them can simultaneously attach to like a Mother Ship.
Doesn’t the Microsoft Surface remind you of those black glass-topped gaming tables you used to find in pubs? Space Invaders, anyone?
Of course there are those who quite rightly question Microsoft’s presumptuous and overblown claims for their product: British multi-touch interface designer Andrew Fentem has a reasonable and well-argued critique of both Microsoft and Jefferson Han here. Fentem’s own Spaceman Technologies website is well worth checking out by multi-touch aficionados.
Finally, irresistibly, if only to puncture the corporate pomposity of Microsoft:
In a recent post (Interfaces of the Future?) I included a video of Jefferson Han’s multi-touch interface. Well I found this one the other day that goes a long way towards answering many of the questions I posed:
It’s real! And notice the mention of “the $100 laptop”? Are we all going to be walking around with these things under our arms in a couple of years?
In a recent Alertbox column Jakob Nielsen looked at the way computer interfacing was represented in films and on TV. I’m not going to reiterate the content of his fine article here, but it did get me thinking about our preconceptions and expectations of the interfaces we use (or wish we used).
There are a whole series of interrelated problems, all based around the fundamental problem of too much information: too much to fit on screen, too much to manipulate, too much to think about. So - the theory goes - there must be some better way to manage this than the current QWERTY keyboard and mouse paradigm that dominates mainstream computing…
How about this:
Impressive huh? Or is it all smoke and mirrors set to a cool soundtrack? Looking at it closely, we can see that it’s simply a touch screen, but one that has multiple simultaneous sensing points. What’s more, there’s a shot of two people working on the machine together, so one can only guess that it recognizes somewhere around 16-20 sensing points at any one time. Apart from the nice-looking but probably-not-all-that-useful lava lamp blobs, examples of programs being used in the video include image manipulation software, word games, text entry, a Missile Command-type game, a real-time music program such as Max/MSP, and some kind of activity using molecular objects. There’s also evidence of a working toolbar. So, yes, impressive actually.
Evidence, then, of a functioning example of an innovative computer interface, albeit in a university research lab. Is it realistic to expect interfaces like this to appear in the near future? Is it Tomorrow’s World or Star Trek? Well:
Sorry, I’m not trying to jump on the “isn’t the iPhone fabulous” bandwagon but it’s interface - which you’ll note features a touch screen that recognizes at least two simultaneous sensing points - is certainly pretty exciting. And it’s on a hand-held device. And it’s coming to a shop near you, very, very soon.
