I just saw this video yesterday at work for the first time in an internal meeting and I had two thoughts.  First thought was: I’ve seen videos like this before and although they were nice videos, I couldn’t see the way to get there, so I always discounted much of what I saw as just “a vision.”  However, as I got home and saw the video again (albeit a shorter version than the one that I saw earlier), and I started to look at what was being shown and matching it with what I have on my desk today and was hopeful for this “vision of the future.”

 

 

Here’s a short-list of what I saw:

  1. Touch enabled devices – We have those (e.g., iPhones, HTC Touch phones, etc.)
  2. Touch enabled surfaces – We have those (e.g., Microsoft Surface tables, HP’s Touch Computer running Vista, Touch enabled features in Windows 7 beta, etc.).  However, getting touch-enabled walls, windows, etc. are not available today, but I have seen enough (i.e., the Science Channel and other demonstrations) to know that people are working on them.
  3. Tablet Computing – We’ve had that for a while, since Windows XP.  However they showed more capability and a smoother experience than we have today.  I hear that companies are working on Android interfaces for netbooks and other devices, so I can see this market potentially growing and getting stronger.
  4. Extremely high-speed communications between devices – This is one that I’ve seen the foundation for with 3G/4G wireless and Bluetooth communication between devices.  However moving information (i.e., data, video, pictures) from one device to a nearby device with a swipe of the hand is not something that I’ve seen as of yet.  However, I can see how we could get there as my recent experience with my Kindle 2 is showing me (Amazon keeps you synched from Kindle to the cloud to another Kindle 2, without losing your place in a book, for the most part).
  5. Digital Ink devices – In the longer form video they show a guy reading his news paper a dynamically switching between stories on a digital-ink newspaper (i.e., foldable/paper-like device).  I have the precursor to that today in my Kindle, but it’s not foldable.  To be honest, I personally prefer it NOT TO BE FOLDABLE!  I can see a need use for this kind of tactile feedback-like device, but I personally don’t need it for news/books etc.
  6. Heads up displays (HUD) that display virtual world image overlays of physical world “stuff”.  I’ve seen prototypes of this kind of technology, but from what I’ve seen we’d have to change our manufacturing processes to adorn physical equipment with RFID’s or some other technology to let the HUD figure out what we’re looking at and how we are holding it.
  7. Gesture-technology to manipulate the virtual world – We have that today in limited form with the iPhones, HTC Phones, Microsoft Surface device, and some other more specialized equipment.  So I can see how we’d get there.

 

~Robert Shelton

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