Adam Schwabe

Computer user interfaces have evolved considerably since the keyboard/mouse combination came around almost 30 years ago, but beyond improved usability, aesthetics, and responsiveness, the way we interact with computers has remained largely the same. Touch-screen user interfaces have made quite a number of advances in recent years, and are far more ubiquitous now than ever before, showing up in grocery store self-checkout lines, movie theaters, and airports. It’s no surprise why Jeff Han’s forward-looking multi-touch user interface concept made quite the splash at the 2006 TED conference last year. If you watch or have seen the video of his demo of the interface, you’ll immediately know why.

Many have compared Han’s work to the scene where Tom Cruise effortlessly drags around videos, panels and windows in the 2002 movie, Minority Report, and it’s exciting to think of how many practical applications this kind of interface could make its way into. Mapping, 3D and graphics design, and of course the military applications are some that immediately come to mind; It’s hard to imagine that DARPA doesn’t at the very least have an eye on this project. Han was showing off the tech again as shown in the linked video at this year’s TED, which just wrapped up a short while ago. More information about the work of Han and his team at NYU is available on NYU’s project page for Multi-Touch Interaction Research.