Layar and 10GUI

Two topics for today: Layar, and 10GUI.

These are two really out-there technologies that I think you'll be seeing more of!

Let's start with Layar. This is an entrant into the category of technology known as "augmented reality," and has been introduced as an app for the iPhone (Layar Reality Browser). (You have to have the iPhone 3GS, because it required the digital compass functionality not available in previous releases.)

The technology is sort of a mashup technology: it blend a real view of the world with... well, with pretty much anything you want to "layer" over it. So it might be houses for sale layered over a view of a neighborhood; technical specifications over an industrial site; an historic view over a "now" view of an historic site.

With the iPhone app, you invoke the application, then use your camera to "look" at something. The real time video you're looking at becomes a clickable browser, with the type of information you requested layered over the "real" world.  The application is free.

10GUI is a new way of looking at... or, feeling?... human-computer interactions. Til now, the mouse and keyboard have been the only realistic combination of inputs for using your computer.

Minority Report aside, it's impractical to think that we're all going to end up standing up and throwing apps around a huge, wall-sized screen one day.

10GUI has an slightly different take, though the technology is based on touchscreen technology.

You'll still be seated at your desk, you'll still be viewing a monitor... but you will also be using a large touchpad/keyboard combination that allows you to use all 10 fingers on the touchpad. Your two little fingers will be used to touch the edges of the pad and invoke global or local menus; a single finger can click on an item, two fingers can "pinch" an item to enlarge or reduce it in size; four fingers can "pull" a screen up or down (scroll), and so on.

While some observers think there is too much of a learning curve for the technology to be widely accepted, I disagree. The iPhone has been successful largely because the gestures really are "native." They make sense, and are easy to learn and remember. So it would seem with the gestures the designers have associated with actions on 10GUI - as I watched a demonstration I couldn't help thinking, "Yeah, that's right. I "get" that."

Watch for this technology to take off... I know I'll be on the bleeding edge of this one!

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