Hasta La Ideas

During the end of their lifetimes as useful interfaces, no one threw a party for the rotary dial, the skeleton key or the crank people once used to manually start their Model T’s. But Amsterdam-based design firm Studio Moniker, certain that we’re “nearing the end of the humble computer cursor” presumably due to touchscreens, is celebrating the little left-leaning arrow with an interactive video project.

This is a little tricky to describe, but what they’re doing is creating a crowdsourced interactive experience. You click on a link and are presented with a screen featuring not only your cursor, but the cursors of users all around the world that have been recently recorded by them doing exactly what you are—which is following a series of onscreen prompts to guide your cursor in specific directions.

It’s a lot more fun than it sounds like, and we highly recommend you try it out by clicking here (NSFW). Your cursor’s movements will then be recorded and integrated into future iterations of the video that new people will click on and experience.

The website Creative Applications has more info on the project here.

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We’ve seen plenty of variations on the now-canonical input device known as a keyboard, from touchscreen interfaces and, um, exterfaces to a tactile surface treatment (currently available on Kickstarter). However, a new keyboard concept has more in common with so-called index typewriters—as seen in hipstomp’s typewriter round-up—than these superficial keyboard treatments, at least to the extent that it offers a more economic layout.

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Specifically, Minuum improves on the concept of a linear arrangement of letters: screen-based UI and predictive text allows for a QWERTY layout to be transposed into a single line of letters. (It’s worth noting that index typewriters were initially developed as a less expensive, more portable alternative to keyboard-based typewriters, though they were reportedly slower than handwriting in most instances.)

Minuum is a tiny, one-dimensional keyboard that frees up screen space while allowing fast, accurate typing. Current technology assumes that sticking a full typewriter into a touchscreen device is the best way to enter text, giving us keyboards that are error-prone and cover up half the usable screen space (or more) on most smartphones and tablets.

Minuum, on the other hand, eliminates the visual clutter of archaic mobile keyboards by adapting the keyboard to a single dimension. What enables this minimalism is our specialized auto-correction algorithm that allows highly imprecise typing. This algorithm interprets in real time the difference between what you type and what you mean, getting it right even if you miss every single letter.

The video is, as they say, a must-see:

Yes, the last bit is cool, but nota bene: it’s currently an alpha-stage prototype, and Will Walmsley & co. are currently seeking funding on IndieGoGo. Suffice it to say that we’ll be keeping an eye on this one… if all of the hypothetical wearable implementations become a reality, we could see the emergence of a new set of curious rituals.

Hat-tip to Nik Roope

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Now that the “Who owns the glass rectangle” smartphone wars are thankfully fading into the background of the news cycle, competition in interaction designs is coming to the forefront. Apple arguably kicked it off in ’11 by integrating Siri, introducing voice control; as we saw yesterday, Google may push into backside touch; and now Samsung is introducing a host of different interaction designs with their latest model.

Unveiled last night, Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 has “Smart Pause,” which stops and starts videos depending on whether your eyes are looking at the screen (they are presumably tracked by the camera). “Smart Scroll” advances screen content when the user tilts the phone to one side or the other. “Air Gesture” allows users to manipulate the phone without actually touching it, but rather by hovering a finger over the screen, or using a broader gesture like a hand wave to advance photographs. (And it works while wearing gloves.) Lastly, “S Translator” enables you to speak one language into the phone, and have the phone speak back a translation into a different language.

While none of these features are a magic bullet that will instantly win the smartphone war, that’s not the relevant point, to us. What we’re glad of is that heated competition is producing a range of experimental ways that we can interact with devices. Apple’s steady, measured development process is very different from Samsung’s “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” approach, with Google somewhere in the middle, and we can’t say which methodolody is superior; but either way it’s an exciting time for interaction design, and it is the end user who stands to win from all of these companies duking it out.

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When we last looked in on interaction designer Jinha Lee, he was developing the See-Through 3D Desktop for the Microsoft Applied Sciences Group. Last week Lee, who’s pursuing a doctorate at MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group, posted a video showing a potential retail application for the set-up: Called WYCIWYW, for “What You Click is What You Wear,” the interface would allow the user to virtually try on wristwatches and jewelry.

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Well folks, looks like 2013 is shaping up to be the year gesture control finally becomes available to the masses.

First up, the Leap motion controller that caused such a blog stir (we covered it here and here) will start shipping on May 13th, just about a year after they began taking pre-orders.

Hot on their heels—or forearms, I should say—is the Myo controller pictured above, an arm bracelet that you wear well above your wrist but below the elbow. Why the weird position? The Myo actually reads the electrical activity in your muscles, rather than relying on a camera.

This seems like a pretty smart approach, as the Myo can decipher complex finger gestures, flicks and rotations without requiring line-of-sight. That suddenly opens up a new world of interactivity that doesn’t require the user be sitting in front of a camera-equipped computer, or dancing around in front of a Kinect. Peep this:

Looks amazing, no? If it works as advertised, it will have a much broader range of applications than the stationary Leap, and the Myo’s price reflects that: The Leap’s going for $80, while the Myo will run you $150. It’s up for pre-order now and they’re claiming it will ship later this year.

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