The way you use your computer is about to change in very dramatic and exciting ways, but strangely it’s not going to feel unfamiliar to you.
The first taste of it probably came in 2002 when Tom Cruise stood in front of a glass screen in Minority Report manipulating data with his hands. Since mid-2007 you’ve seen the HTC TouchFlo screen and the Apple iPhone. By the end of this year you’re likely to be starting to use your own computer in much the same way.
If Social Media was the big buzz of 2006/07 then the next couple of years is most definitely going to be about Experience Design and Visualisation. It’s going to change your operating system and it’s going to change the applications and websites that you use. Not “in a couple of years”. The changes are beginning to release now and it’s only going to accelerate from here.
The first wave has been experimental visualisations. Digg’s Swarm, part of the awesome work of Stamen Design is an early example, and more recently YouTube have begun experimenting with a visual related-videos search, prototyped by music sites like Musicovery, which shift and change, showing new relationships, as you deeper into your search.
In August 2007 NAC Labs posted a video of its Visual Search project which uses live screen shots instead of listings for search results.
No less a mighty force than Microsoft is also racing to finalise Seadragon project, which will allow you to navigate and manipulate entire websites by thumbnail. Another project by Microsoft Live Labs, Photosynth is available for free download if you use NT or Vista and does some pretty amazing things with the way you interact with photography.
If all this sounds experimental, it’s not. Already you can download PicLens as a free plug-in for your favourite browser. It works with photo sites (Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, DeviantArt, Smugmug), Social Networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster) and Image Search engines like Google Images and Yahoo Images, creating a 3D Wall of photos with drag, click and zoom functionality.
If you’re on a PC (the Mac version is not ready yet), take a look at SpaceTime, which starts to come very close to the feel of Minority Report, with 3D manipulation of searches.
Still not Tom Cruise enough for you? Imagine combining it with touchscreen technology like this:
3 Comments
February 5, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Time to buy stock in Windex, I think. A former art director partner used to have a sign on his monitor that said, “Keep your fat, greasy sausage fingers off the monitor.” I’m sure he’ll be all over this.
February 18, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Whoa… but can the human brain handle all this?
February 21, 2008 at 10:03 am
Heya Ian
I’m thinking my human brain is going to have problems with it, but the solution might be to hire a 9 year old kid to work the computer for me. I’ve seen them frag on Nintendo, hold a conversation, eat and sms simultaneously, so I guess if we can invent a way to eat without using hands this won’t slow anything down.
:p M