Motion Tracking: Beckoning to the Future
When speculating about the future of motion tracking technology, there are many questions that come to mind. How would this technology change the way I type? How would it make my life easier? Would I have more peripherals then than I do now? Less? These questions all seem reasonable, and this thought process provides me with some interesting thoughts, so to this, I give a thumbs up. The thumbs up is exactly what this project is trying to let me do. No more mouse clicks, just a series of natural hand gestures that will allow me to interact with my computer.
Here’s a glimpse at the future:
FaceBook says that someone wants to be your friend, you point at their picture and are taken to their profile. Turns out, this was someone you went to high school with, thumbs up! Next you want to check your email, so place your hands at what would be the corner of the FaceBook window and move it out of the way by sliding your hands to your left or right. You point at your email icon and a new window pops up with your latest email messages. You receive another alert from FaceBook saying that your evil ex-girlfriend wants to be your friend, thumbs down!
Nothing says that the technology has to be confined to your computer, so you find yourself out and about, shopping perhaps. Suddenly, you want a soda pop, so you head over to the vending machine. Naturally, touching the machine itself is a good way to spread germs, so why not just point at the item you want after putting your money into the machine? Ordering from a take-out menu? Point to your selections, make the modifications you want, so you can be sure you ordered no onions on that burger.
A little imagination goes a long way here. Who knows what other technologies motion tracking will actually be used in? The possibilities are truly endless. Surfing the web without a mouse could really be useful and much more intuitive, as would using your own gestures to select enemies on a computer game. Being able to use your hands would definitely allow for the creation of new and exciting user interfaces that could look more and more like their real world counterparts. Excel spreadsheets that can actually look more like real world ledgers, or e-books that allow you to turn the page (something Apple has already done with their iPad e-reader).
What would you like to see this technology used for?
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