Video: MIT's Latest User Interface Employs Gravity-Defying, Levitating Metal Orbs

That's pretty damn neat! Wonder what the long term effects of immersion in a dence electromagnetic enviroment might have on human tissue...

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

Yeah, that looks a lot easier than using a mouse ... no, wait it, it doesn't. What was the point, again?

this is clearly alien technology. aliens have been using it for millions of years. this explains all the floating orbs(ufos) seen in the sky.

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest

JediMindset,
Yes the annunaki did use this in the movement of monolithic several hundred and 1000 ton stones for their pyamids and other structures...

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

@Robot,

you are correct. this is how they made Stonehenge and the structures of Puma Punka move.

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest

Its a neat start. However they need to incorporate more power to generate a more stable magnetic field, and better glide motors for the cross arms (Think Da Vinci S surgical arm). This would minimize the oscillation "jiggle" you notice in the video. It would also allow for larger objects with a greater range of movement. Until they do that it will not be viable for 3D modelling or floating camera points.

However keeping in mind it is in an early stage of development, they are definitely on the right track. I look forward to seeing what they come up with for future models.

@codezero "Wonder what the long term effects of immersion in a dence electromagnetic enviroment might have on human tissue..."

depending on the frequency and amplitude, it can range from nothing to "frog in the microwave", lol. All the more reason why i say "I'll do the research, let the other guy build it and cook his boys!"

Make it bigger and able to shoot electrical bursts and we have the fight training sphere that Luke Skywalker uses on the Falcon. Of course we would also need a laser saber..

Make the objects holographic and somehow interactable, a larger electromagnetic range and their you have it, the interactivity that people wanted from the kinect and wii. Might take like 50 more years till that happens but hey, at least their workin on it

@nighthawkich Surely the greatest restriction to the camera movements isn't the stability, which could easily be smoothed computationally with minimal loss of accuracy, but the fact that the rotation of the ball cannot be measured, and hence the camera must be programmed to focus on a point in space.

can it project a bigger image of what you wanted to see. like i want to see the planet rotating around the star but don't want it to be the size of a marble can it project that sphere a little bit bigger, or would i have to have a bigger "marble"

So when can i get one, this would keep me entertained for days.

"Fear, is but your mind holding you back"

replace the tracked floating marble with tracked non-floating gloves and add a big holographic multi-screen multi keyboard thingy floating around you and you have a stark tech design interface

@georgeAbrahams Rotation of the ball can be easily measured. There is nothing in this technology that dictates the ball must be a mirror finish ball bearing. Should the need arise to exactly track the spheres orientation, micro fissures (Think a grid of pits about the depth of those in the surface foil of a CD/DVD) would easily perform this function. However without a consistently stable field and an extremely smooth glide path to maintain smooth transitions of the magnets, any point in space tracking of any kind will be limited to extremely low resolutions.

The software and algorithms you are referring to do nothing but statistical averaging. Ask anyone in the medical field (as well as any of the gamers here), mouse/lens smoothing is nowhere near a substitute for a higher resolution mouse/lens.

Its called a lightsaber. Please get it right.
"weapon consisted of a blade of pure plasma emitted from the hilt and suspended in a force containment field."
starwars.wikia.come

Reminds me of mylar aerogels utilized by NASA-USAF-Spacecommand for balloon engineering and active ablative surfaces.

How about a larger platform with the ability to levitate a trillion (or more) spheres to create any object(s) and be able to interact with them = holo deck!