Featured above is a table out of New Jersey, USA. The Dialog Table is a shared interface where you use hand gestures to discover more about the artworks at the Walker Art Center. This table has a very unique design, and this is all due to works of a group named kinecity.
From multitouch devices being featured on CNN to the iPhone craze, multimodal input is officially hitting public minds. In return many more applications will arise out of undiscovered necessities. Such as the image manipulation video below. (Note: I have not yet researched this project but it came from this school)
And now with Apple implementing more gesture driven functions into their products such as the Fingerwork’s MacNTouch. Keyboards which integrate the functions of a large touchpad, gesture input, and a zero force ergonomic keyboard, all on the same surface. Apple acquired Fingerworks in the beginning of 2006 which can explain some of their touchscreen ambitions. Thus their upcoming product line should be very interesting with already so many gesture patents and touch screen patents.
While I won’t claim to understand Apple’s multi-touch systems, it seems to use a multi-layered version of conventional touch screen technology which makes it able to detect multiple touch locations. This is compared to the FTIR and computer vision approach, which is not suited for portable computing applications. And, quite frankly, this is probably the most important implementation of such an interface.
