mashable.com: With the advent of touchscreens and increasingly powerful mobile computers, digital interface innovation has become one of the most exciting areas of research. Now a new project called inFORM, crafted at the MIT Media Lab, offers a peek at an even richer interface dynamic for future devices.
Combining 900 actuators connected to square rods with the Microsoft Kinect, the team, which included Sean Follmer, Daniel Leithinger, Alex Olwal, Akimitsu Hogge and Hiroshi Ishii, was able to create an interface that brings computer generated 3D objects and motions to life via real world shapes and movements.
6 comments:
Like many other impressive hi-tech innovations, this device seems straight out of a science fiction movie. This is obviously still at the research and development level, but very impressive nonetheless. Once this technology becomes more precise and reaches a price tag that makes its mass-production a realistic goal, it could have some very powerful uses. And who knows, maybe one day we'll be able to shake hands with a person interviewing us on the other side of the globe!
I think it's fascinating that there is so much research devoted to developing new ways to communicate in better, more efficient and inclusive ways. Humans are constantly finding new ways to interact with each other, and even if technology often introduces a great deal of distance between individuals, it can also bring people and opportunities together in amazing ways.
It appears that the days of virtual modeling and interacting with computer displays like Tony Stark does in the movies isn't as far away as some might think. The Kinect has proven to be the key to a number of interactive projects, not just a new way of gaming. As they continue to develop this item I wonder if they'll attempt to a pursue a tighter pixel ratio. The pegs seem a little large, especially when rendering the car and some of the other more detailed items.
I remember back in 2009 at E3 when the Kinect was originally released people were a little concerned with the functionality of the software and how it was going to work. Four years later, and the Kinect is being used to create art and other technological interfaces. This creating is fascinating and beautiful to watch. The possibilities are endless with this creation and its so cool to see your 3D shapes and movements come to life in real time right before your eyes. I can seed competitions form from this creation where students need to complete certain tasks by using this interface and the ball in an obstacle course type manner.
I think this is really awesome and shows how gaming technology and systems can be used for so much more than just playing video games. The kinect is really a level of human interaction that no gaming system used before. In this article and video it proves to be a tool to study the connections between 3D and 2D interactions. I'm interested to see how this technology influences practices other than gaming.
This technology is something we will probably see in 30 years, attached to lighting consoles. Using a more organic motion to choose color, change levels, and director movement of moving lights.
I also predict this interface style coming to the 3D cad world. The mouse is an outdated and inefficient human interface.
I love this "screen" and would love to try my hand at building one at some point in the future. I also think it would be cool to replace each of the rods with much thinner, fiberoptic rods that would act as pixels, connected to an RGB LED at the bottom. Then you could have a high resolution 3 Dimensional display that works in full color. Great work MIT, I can't wait to see CMU's version
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