The Present and Future of User Interface

Interactions with computers have made some rather amazing advances. We started with punch cards and ticker tape, and technology has marched forward from there to keyboards and beyond. The last revolution in interface technology was made by Xerox when they invented the first mouse.

The mouse was a simple affair. It was just a box with a single button and two wheels: one for up and down motion, the other for left and right. Xerox was able to demonstrate how this technology could be used with virtual buttons on a computer screen. At the time, this technology was revolutionary; it was a massive step forward in making computers be user-friendly.

Looking at any computer that we use today, it is readily apparent that despite continued and exponential advancement, the basics of user interface have remained largely the same since the mouse first appeared. Our mice these days may use cameras instead of wheels to sense motion, and our buttons may be more numerous and shinier, but nothing has really changed for the average user.

Of course, a new form of interaction has rushed onto the stage: touch technology, the ability to use our fingers to manipulate what we see on a computer screen. This has been further advanced with the concept of multi-touch technology, which allows a computer to take multiple simultaneous touch actions at the same time. The most popular example of this technology is of course, the iPhone, but that is just a drop in the pond compared to what is possible on a larger scale.



The above video is a combination of technical demos demonstrating the power and intuitiveness of a multitouch interface. The display in the video was created by Jeff Han, and uses a simpler and more scalable technology than the iPhone. The iPhone detects touch from changes in electronic capacitance caused by touching the screen. However, this technology is very complicated, and very expensive to implement on a large scale.

As Kate Green writes in this article, Han’s multi-touch technology is different. His screen is a 6 millimeter thick acrylic panel. The edges of this panel are lined with infrared light emitting diodes. The light from these LEDs normally stays inside the acrylic panel, but when the panel is touched, the light is reflected out of the panel. This light is picked up by an infrared camera behind the panel, and the software is easily able to process these globs of light into distinct individual touches.

Another product that takes advantage of this technology is the Microsoft Surface. This device is the size of a table, and it takes advantage of both multitouch and image recognition technology to pull off rather impressive feats.



All this technology is pretty fancy and new. But what’s the next step? The technological world has never been content to just sit back, it’s always looking forward, and the next step will put us firmly in line towards science fiction. Holograms have always been a staple of fictionally advanced worlds, and there have been some rather significant advances in our world. However, one thing that has always seemed to not quite be possible was interactive holography. Well, we can count that dream to be solidly on track with the efforts of a team from the University of Tokyo.



The technology in the video is relatively simple. The hologram is created by an LCD screen being projected into a concave mirror. The hand tracking is created with infrared LEDs reflecting back at the two Wii Remotes (the two Wii Remotes gives the program the ability to sense depth like our eyes). Finally, the finishing touch is the ultrasonic relay which gives the user touch feedback, also called “haptic” feedback. This allows a user of this technology to touch and interact with the hologram, and feel like he or she is indeed touching that device.

What does this mean for the future? We need only to look at science fiction to tell us what’s in store for us. As these separate technologies compress and become more advanced, the devices we use will approach what science fiction has placed into our imaginations. The future is close at hand.

Works Referenced

Greene, Kate. “Touch Screens for Many Fingers.” Technology Review. MIT, January 18, 2007. Link.

Han, Jeff. “Multi-Touch Interaction Research.” New York University. 2006. Link.

Hoshi, Takayuki et al. Touchable Holography. The University of Tokyo. 2009. Link.

“iPod Touch Technology.” iPod Touch. Apple inc. 2009. Link.

Multi-Touch Interaction Experiments. Jefferson Han et al. 2006. Imbedded Video. Link.

Touchable Holography. ShindoaLab. July 16, 2009. YouTube Link.