Microsoft's New Way to Interface

Trackballshumbs rule.A round of thumbers for everyone!

There was an Outlook calendar addin that was based on the AppLens/ZoneZoom technology, but I can't remember what it was called. Can't seem to find it on the MS research site either.

Anyone else remember this?

You know -- after reading all the bitching about Alec posting "non-gaming" news I can't help but bitch a little myself. I don't recall any "non-gaming" complaints about the projector and screen giveaway. This guy is doing a great job IMO -- it's nice to see some techy news as well (just my 2 cents.). Oh -- if you're going to say that the projector and screen can be used for games... well the phone can too. </end rant>

Oh nice! I wish we could have those nifty screens and controls like in Minority Report.

There goes Alex showing his darn tooting fanboism again. Plenty of other companies are working on excellent examples of one handed gadgetry!

I remember around 17 years ago I was reading a book on input interfaces saying the standard keyboard would be dead in like one decade. At that time, the mouse was just starting to be used, and one of the chapters on the book said that the mouse would evolve so much that it'd eventually replace the keyboard. They even had a concept of a mouse with around 7 buttons that you could combine to type in letters. It got me puzzled at the time.

Today I say, what a bunch of crap. I like to see new interfaces, but to this day, I still curse left and right when see someone proposing new interfaces to 'replace' the keyboard as if it's "a problem". The keyboard exists not because of a technical limitation, but because it's cheap to build, it's easy to learn, and it's practical to use. People can argue all they can about how ugly it is, how input interfaces are supposed to be ubiquitous and all that, but interfaces aren't supposed to be invisible: they're supposed to be practical, easy. That's what a keyboard is.

I welcome our new thumbscrewing overlords. But the keyboard (and probably the mouse) won't go away until we're able to directly control the computer with our minds.

What does this have to do with gaming and shacknews? I mean, I like the additional new content thats being added, but this seems kind out of place. Maybe for a MS handheld gaming system?

meh.. what's wrong with just creating a thumbstick type of pointing device mounted on the right side of a palm-sized device and having 2-3 trigger type buttons on the left? example:

+--------+
| |
b =]
b |
| |
| |
+--------+

That way the UI can be navigated the same way people expect, yet only requires the use of one hand (when holding the device with your palm facing towards you, behind the device, your thumb would be resting on the thumbstick on the right and index and middle finger on the buttons on the right.. is this so difficult to pull off????)

how fat are we getting when we cant even use two hands....</leno>

It could be interesting to see where this is headed. I bet MS is boiling over there in Redmond seeing Sony develope such a cool peice of technology (PSP).

I've got two guns thumbs. One for each of you.