Jeff Han gets all Minority Report on us at Nvision

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 26th August 2008
Comments (23) Stumble
Jeff Han shows off his multi-touch technology during the opening keynote and it's incredibly cool - there's no other way to describe it.

Jeff Han shows off his multi-touch technology during the opening keynote and it's incredibly cool - there's no other way to describe it.

During Jen-Hsun Huang’s keynote, which touched on almost none of the key issues surrounding Nvidia, he invited Jeff Han, founder of Perceptive Pixel, on stage to demo his new multi-touch technology.

Han is famous for his work in multi-touch technology and his demo didn’t disappoint – it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and reminded me of the interface used by Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

He explained how graphics is an important part of delivering a great user interface because, after all, it’s a graphical user interface.

Han then started moving things around in ways that you’d never think was possible – the way we interact with computers could change drastically if his technology makes it into the mainstream.

And, while I’m speaking of how this technology will filter out into the market, Han expects it to first be taken up by the military and high-end designers but doesn’t see any reason for it not to make its way into home computing. After all, the iPhone’s interface is what makes the device revolutionary in the mobile phone market and it’s the reason I haven’t moved to a fuller-featured phone with fewer basic flaws.

Jeff Han gets all Minority Report on us at Nvision Jeff Han gets all Minority Report on us at Nvision
Jeff Han gets all Minority Report on us at Nvision Jeff Han gets all Minority Report on us at Nvision

Pictures don’t do Han’s demo justice, so I’ve included Perceptive Pixel’s official video below. Do you think multi-touch user interfaces like this are the future? Discuss in the forums.

Quote Krikkit 26th August 2008, 19:21
This kind of thing is amazing tbh, and it'll definately move into the open once the tech is right. Imagine how much easier it'd be to CAD if you could just use your hands. Hell, you could even have different physical tools to do different jobs, so you could have a pencil tool, crop tool, extrude tool etc all in the real world.
Quote C-Sniper 26th August 2008, 19:28
That is incredible. I would hate to think of the processing power and the GPU power required to handle all the things shown on the video. But still. if that makes main stream.... wow.

I need to start investing...
Quote liratheal 26th August 2008, 20:05
I want that for RTS games.

I really, really, do. I can see it being really fantastic for it.
Quote Redbeaver 26th August 2008, 20:06
*drool*

that is all.
Quote Faulk_Wulf 26th August 2008, 20:24
Amazing video-- but didn't the MS-Surface demo do the same thing almost a year ago?
Doesn't make this any less amazing but still.
Oh well, more then one person working on this tech can't hurt.
Quote Mr T 26th August 2008, 20:58
Cool but it looks like there's far too much energy involved in using it :p Spend 8 hours a day doing that and its like a workout.
Quote Xtrafresh 26th August 2008, 21:37
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr T
Cool but it looks like there's far too much energy involved in using it :p Spend 8 hours a day doing that and its like a workout.
sweet, now we nerds will get buff! BEEFCAKE! BEEFCAKE :D

but tbh, i don't see any major advancement from MS-Surface either... he's even doing the same things.
Quote steveo_mcg 26th August 2008, 21:49
I read some where that Tom Cruse had to take a break after shooting scenes using the thing in minority report. I think for long term use they would become very tiring.
Quote LeMaltor 26th August 2008, 22:09
Think I seen this on TED too, looks cool
Quote Bladestorm 26th August 2008, 23:01
Awesome.

It probably would get tiring, primarily because we'd be entirely unused to it, but the excercise would probably do us wonders as a species (at least the portion that works in offices anyhow)
Quote kenco_uk 26th August 2008, 23:34
Think it being on a tabletop rather than on a wall.

Incredible tech though.
Quote metarinka 27th August 2008, 02:17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEax1mJhJQ0 here's a video of a similar technology being used to play warcraft 3. It's interesting, I don't know why every touch screen tech demo always has people moving and manipulating pictures, it really seems like a chaotic way to try to sort, view, arrange etc pictures. I could almost see it being useful say on arranging a magazine page layout but as a heavy photoshop user at one point there really would not be a benefit of me dragging pictures around and such spinning them and resizing them.

I think multitouch is an interesting technology it will be interesting to see where it goes.
Quote MonkeyNutZ 27th August 2008, 02:20
http://nuigroup.com/

My screen should be done next month.
Quote r4tch3t 27th August 2008, 04:13
Quote:
Originally Posted by liratheal
I want that for RTS games.

I really, really, do. I can see it being really fantastic for it.
That would be great, I wonder if Starcraft 2 will incorporate this into it lol.
Quote B3CK 27th August 2008, 07:41
I think this might actually taste better than sliced bread.

Yes, it would require more activity, but give it a week or so, and your muscles would get used to it; and you will start to burn more calories. Almost every customer, and technicians alike, I visit that spend their workday in front of computer could use a few more burned calories.

Technicaly, I can see this just eating up ram like there's no tomorrow. Processor as well. I guess it's good news that intel is planning massive multi-cpu architecture.
Next up, make that a thin physical footprint, and/or something portable, get ISP's to open up their bandwidth, then say good bye to computing as we know it today.
Quote badders 27th August 2008, 08:50
Quote:
Originally Posted by Faulk_Wulf
Amazing video-- but didn't the MS-Surface demo do the same thing almost a year ago?
Doesn't make this any less amazing but still.
Oh well, more then one person working on this tech can't hurt.

Jeff was on it first - I saw his tech demo videos late 2005/early 2006.
My reaction then (as I hadn't seen ANYTHING similar apart from minority report) was definitely a WOWOMGZ!
Quote knyghtryda 27th August 2008, 09:28
This would be the ultimate meeting tool. The current displays are too low resolution to be used by the person at that short of distance, but for a crowd of people watching, this would be a great way to brainstorm, plan, etc if someone could just get up and mess with stuff on the screen without needing to know anything more than to put a finger to the board and drag. Its as intuitive as a whiteboard but a million times more powerful.
Quote liratheal 27th August 2008, 09:40
Quote:
Originally Posted by r4tch3t
That would be great, I wonder if Starcraft 2 will incorporate this into it lol.

=P

I wish End War would. Ever since that video of the American commander screwing up his battle tactics using one (In the game), I've wanted to do a better job using the same tech >.>
Quote Jordan Wise 27th August 2008, 12:35
yeah i can definatly see this being used in design, as im sure the iron man suit was made in a similar fashion
Quote chicorasia 27th August 2008, 13:20
So it seems that all everyone ever does on these multitouch interfaces is to move pictures around and zoom in and out of maps.

Is anyone doing any real work? CAD? 3D modelling? How about typing an email?
Quote Saivert 27th August 2008, 14:32
this is just for the fun, and as demonstrated numerous times it's only useful for manipulating graphical objects. Typing out an email would be on a on-screen keyboard.

Tangible user interface is a better idea. You actually use real blocks which you place on a screen.

oh something..
Quote AOwpr 28th August 2008, 16:07
Wow. Wow. WOWOWOWOWOW.
/wants

StarCraft 2? What about SupCom? That would be sweet. :) Any RTS, really. As for getting tired... who cares? :P
Quote HourBeforeDawn 29th August 2008, 05:53
I am amazed, Bit-Tech knows how to use a camera... well I guess not really as they are using someone elses video but to say the least this is a much welcomed change, about time we see some more video action instead of the long winded articles, home this means they are getting a bit more with the times on the video front at least. ^^

Also so awesome, this is what I want for my living room or office lol
Log in

You are not logged in, please login with your forum account below. If you don't already have an account please register to start contributing.





Stats: 0.065 seconds