| 13 October 2009
Recently with all the hype about the new Microsoft Tablet Computer "Courier" and the reactive rumors about Apples Mac Tablet have gotten everyone buzzing about how it will work and more importantly, will it be yet another failure in computing as have most tablet incarnation in the past. The Courier seems to really have dumbed down the features and operating system to something that resembles a netbook, allowing users to accomplish basic computing tasks such as email, web browsing, communications and simple drawing and writing. Additionally although Apple has made some great advances in portable communications with the advent of the iPhone, images floating around of a bigger iPhone would signal a really bad step for Apple into the tablet realm, let pray it isn't a glorified iPhone.The good thing about these discussions lately is that many concepts about modern interfaces, touch-screen technology, and conceptual GUIs seem to show some potential for a true multi-touch hands on solution for computing and mobile computing. Some of the problems that exits today are that often hardware solutions are rarely accompanied by complimentary software solutions or vice -versa. Take, the most recent product by Wacom, the Bamboo Fun - Pen and Touch, which combines a traditional pen tablet with some multi-touch functionality to resemble iPhone features. Having used it myself, I have to admit that while it sounded great and I do believe it still has great potential, it falls short because there are no respective updates to applications like Photoshop and Illustrator CS3 that would allow me to use the device to it's fullest extent. Simple things like rotating object just don't work because the Adobe apps were not designed to take advantage of multi-touch interfaces.
This brings us to the 10/GUI solution to multi-touch by R. Clayton Miller. Miller first tackles the issues, both advantages and disadvantages, of traditional mice and more recent touch screen devices. Miller then proposes two solutions, first is a multi-touch pad that allows the users to use all 10 fingers to interact with the objects on the screen and second is a new interface (operating system) solution called Con10uum which is basically a linear way to organize windows with some gestures like those found on firefox gestures extensions. If you haven't seen the demo you should, it explains all these in detail.
10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.
While I love the concept of a multi-touch pad that utilizes all 10 fingers to interact with the operating system there are some things that must be considered to make it truly functional. First is the problem of sensitivity, the current problem with the touch wacom tablets is that it seems to interpret everything as a click, its hard to separate clicks from just holding the fingers in place. Also our hands tend to tap, move, flintch, and twitch which could inadvertently be interpreted as movements or clicks. This would also have to be accounted for. Lastly is that the linear interface seems a bit cumbersome, would 3D options perhaps be a better solution allow people to move though items, spinning windows around, something like the interface used by Johnny Nemonic, where we can pick up and grab items, then open them up even if its all being mimicked on a flat surface. Overall, its still exciting to see some work being forged ahead but we'll have to wait and see what pops up in the next few months in way of touch computing to the mass.Find out more about this concept here.
