Will Your Next Touchscreen Be Touchless?

forgot_my_username writes "The MIT Media Lab is developing a motion screen computer. It looks back at you. It measures light and gestures, and uses those to control the interface. 'Imagine every pixel on your LCD screen emitting light could also be receiving light,' said Ramesh Rakar, an Associate Professor at the Media Lab. They even mention the health benefits of not touching displays."

Re:I prefer my mouse.

[wampus]

Just think, with this no-touch screen, sitting infuriatingly still becomes a requirement for your computer to continue doing what it was doing.

Re:I prefer my mouse.

[buruonbrails]

I prefer the keyboard. It's still the most effective input method and the fastest way to manage your computer and smartphone (provided you learned the hotkeys and commands).

Ooh...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Forget this "touchless touchscreen" nonsense. Combine this with the various clever stuff being done in lenseless digital imaging, and we will finally achieve the dream... A Telescreen in every house.

Look for it in the next dubiously compatible revision of HDMI: "Secure audience reporting protocol" an HDMI spec extension allowing your TV to report the number and approximate demographics of viewers to your Blu-ray device or cable STB. Pay-per view programs can now control the number of viewers, V-chip 2 can now detect child-size viewers and automatically halt display of R-rated content(sorry midgets, its for the good of the children)! Neilson will be completely obsolete!

What could possibly go wrong?

what ever happended to "vocie recognition"?

[peter303]

That seems like the obvious way to interact verbally with the computer. At least for parts of applications where you are selecting or entering text.
Touch and gesture has its niches for visual information, where pointing is more succinct than talking or typing about the action.

APIs for both systems are necessary.

Sounds familiar...

[Angst Badger]

How many fingers do you see, Winston?

Re:I prefer my mouse.

[e2d2]

I wish websites would understand this. I can actually input text that is not my name or address. I don't want to click click click. I want to click, type or better yet tab then type for input. For instance, the idea of navigation is so ingrained than typing the word "pass" to get to the password features has been replaced with "search screen for place to click, now click, now click again, once more, now type".

Re:Calibration

[netsavior]

"shaking your fist at an outrageous story" should be done UNDER the desk.

Re:This could be bad for pron

[disi]

Right, I remember this one scene in the movie Minority Report where they move pictures along on a big glass-screen. Try to do this kind of stuff on a touchscreen...

Re:I prefer my mouse.

[sslayer]

The bandwith of 10 fingers is a lot higher than a mouse with just one pointer and a few buttons. You can potentially transmit a lot more instructions in a lot less time using your hands, if only we figured out a proper way to make it work.

Yes, but it already exists: it's called a keyboard.

Re:I prefer my mouse.

[eln]

Sure, except many websites don't handle tabs in a sane manner. Some end up jumping to different input fields seemingly at random, some move from an input field to the little "What's this?" link next to that input field, some move to some completely unrelated link, or to the submit button even though you're only halfway through the form, or any number of zany things. If websites were designed properly, keyboard shortcuts like tab would work as intended. Too bad so few websites are designed with anyone but an IE 8 user (with Flash player and unlimited bandwidth) clicking a mouse in mind.

Re:I prefer my mouse.

[bynary]

...giving you 'hover' semantics on top of touch and pressure.

How much more energy does it take to keep something hovering over a surface as compared to landing said something on the surface? I would imagine that fatigue (of the fingers, hands, forearms, and etc.) would be a much bigger problem should non-touch, gesture based navigation become widespread. Right now it's our wrists, imagine waving your arms in the air for 6 to 8 hours a day.

Re:Why do researchers

[TheRaven64]

Claiming buttons are good does not publish any papers; everyone knows this. If you claim some kind of button substitute is good, you can publish two papers. One making the claim and then another comparing it with buttons in a user study and showing that, actually, buttons are better. If you're really clever, you can then publish a third paper on the methodology for evaluating button substitutes, and a fourth paper on potential problems with future button replacements. Guess which route academics prefer.

Re:Sanitary...

[Dog-Cow]

It would be better to invent people who are not total idiots and assholes regarding proper hygiene. Day to day, there are no diseases you can pick up through touch that your immune system cannot handle with ease. Unless, of course, you are a total idiot that never exercises his immune system.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Ooh...

[Areyoukiddingme]

Somebody else suggested advertising that watches its watchers. I said kill it with fire.

I should have the same reaction to this idea, and I do, but I'm not even going to say it. Because this is inevitable. This isn't funny at all. It'll happen, as surely as the RIAA will sue somebody. It will be delayed while Apple behaves as Apple usually does and radically overvalues their own patent, to the point that Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers refuse to license it, but it will still happen. If Samsung pays up and starts manufacturing these, I foresee a MPAA stampede to exploit it.

Shit, they'll try to use it to plug the analog hole! Detected something that looks like a camera in front of the screen? Refuse to play back. After that it'll take a camouflaged camera with a military-style anti-reflective treated lens on it to take a video of a movie.

And it's inevitable.