Initially we only had a keyboard for the command line and text entry. Then the mouse appeared for navigating two dimensional plains of UI. Now the field of computing has a new input toy to play with; our hands. Touch, multi-touch and gestural computing, also known as Natural User Interface (NUI) has become the newest input craze. Excitement around this has even spurred comments predicting the demise of the mouse in the next 3-5 years1. Computer designers (and engineers) have become engrossed with the ability to touch the screen with multiple fingers and control software by waving their arms. However in this excitement, have designers overlooked how to properly engage users and use multi touch to create useful, innovative, and interesting experiences? … »

Chris Harrison and Scott Hudson (Carnegie Mellon University) came up with a way to use any flat surface as a gesture based input device (Scratch input). An absolute breakthrough which makes extraordinary interactions, like for example controlling your television or music player with your wooden kitchen table, possible. … »

A few weeks ago we wrote about interfaces used in movies. And although these types of interface look really impressive, they are almost never realistic. Until now… because the science advisor of Minority Report has been working on a working prototype, based on the interface in the movie. And I have to admit that this so-called ’spatial operating environment’ g-speak looks almost as impressive as in the movie. … »

Although gesture based interacting is really hot at the moment, we still don’t fully use the power of gestures. That’s what London based designer Zinc Chan must have thought when she came up with the gorgeous looking telephone Icono. Her design was based upon the “iconic hand gesture people use to represent the telephone.” When you want to make a phonecall you don’t pick up the handset like on current telephones, but you put the earphone and microphone around your fingers. By making the telephone gesture you create a phone with your hands. … »