A transparent glass display adds touchless gestures and eye-tracking to human-computer interaction

Pen and voice input for computers is so early-millennium. Now Microsoft has created a next-gen computer concept that includes touchless gestures and eye-tracking, and has taken the device on a college tour with chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie.

The computer comes complete with a transparent glass display that evokes either Minority Report or Iron Man, depending on your movie preference. Mundie circles objects without touching the screen and vocally orders the computer to organize and zoom during the demo. Even more impressive, the computer automatically enlarges documents based on where Mundie looks -- an example of how eye-tracking can make browsing even more effortless.

People not attending Cornell, Harvard, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign or the University of Washington can still catch a glimpse of the next-gen marvel in action in these videos.

Researchers are also developing touchless gesture interfaces that replace cameras with muscle sensors, and have tested such gestures with both Microsoft's Surface Table and the rocking game Guitar Hero.

We're all for more natural interaction with our gadgets. But for the love of Arthur C. Clarke, please don't give eye-tracking to any computer named HAL.

[iStartedSomething via Gizmodo]

9 Comments

Sooo sweet!!! A good start would be to add eye tracking to my windows task bar so I don't have to drag my mouse and click to get to a window.

They got the muscle tracking idea from a super genius kid that could only move his eyes and rigged his computer to follow his eyes. So pretty much they are taking it from him to help other disabled people and not giving him credit(he made it a year ago)

@ uncleiroh13:
Actually, eye tracking was developed years ago
(and has been studied since the 1800's)and one of its more famous applications has been in use with stephen hawkings wheel chair. So it seems you're the one giving false credit.

:)

correction to my own comment. eye tracking isn't used in hawking's wheel chair, but truth still is that eye tracking software has been around for more than a year. wikipedia it.

how much more lazy can people get?

pretty much if u put this in the car, u just keep ur eyes on the road and the car will follow whereever you look.

and if u start to text, the car slams its brakes.

is this is just another way of either dumbing down the human race or helping it to progress?? I dunno anymore!!

This is AWSOME. The creativity level/user friendliness of/for people on computers will shoot through the roof, this has VERY great potential.

Ya another way for cookies to track what I'm looking at!

Unless I'm mistaken, Minority Report had it first.



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