Minority Report UI For The Military

merryprankster writes "New Scientist is reporting that a 'Minority Report' style interface is being developed by defense company Raytheon. Users don a pair of reflective gloves and manipulate images projected on a panoramic screen. A mounted camera keeps track of hand movements and a computer interprets gestures. Raytheon has even employed John Underkoffler, the researcher who proposed the interface to the makers of the film. Now just wait till Billboards start scanning your iris."

pr0n

[by Anonymous Coward]

i wonder what viewing porn will be like with these new gloves.

Re:pr0n

[John Seminal (698722)]

i wonder what viewing porn will be like with these new gloves

You would not view porn. It would become more interactive. You would hump a wall.

I just hope sex does not turn into "Demolition Man".

Lenina: "Would you like to have sex?"
John Spartan: "Oh yes!"
Lenina: "Put this on"
John Spartan: "What's that? And where does it go?"

BTW, anyone ever figure out how the three shells work?

Re:pr0n

[mboverload (657893)]

Hard to watch porn when it keeps going up and down in the playlist.

Re:pr0n

[slittle (4150)]

That's one hell of a "boss button" - just like real life.. when you're about to get caught, grab the pr0n and throw it as far away as possible/under something else.

Or.. *waves hand* this isn't teh pr0n you're looking for. err, I mean.. *waves* Hi boss! Yep, just checking these figures here, see? No problem.

Re:pr0n

[by Anonymous Coward]

> Or.. *waves hand* this isn't teh pr0n you're looking for. err, I mean.. *waves* Hi boss! Yep, just checking these figures here, see? No problem.

"Hi, slittle! Why the fuck are you masturbating to an Excel spreadsheet?"

Re:pr0n

[Hogwash McFly (678207)]

With figures like these, who wouldn't?

Yes, but

[by Anonymous Coward]

When will it carve wooden balls?

Re:Yes, but

[IronChefMorimoto (691038)]

I'd be more interested in whose names will be on the balls...

[soldier at facility] "Alert the president. We have a black ball. It's the Ayatollah. He'll want to handle this one personally. Get the spider hole team ready. We leave in 5. We'll stay for 5 too."

[2nd solider] "Sir! We have another ball -- red. It appears that North Korea is tipping on its Axis of Evil."

[1st soldier] "You can ignore that one. We always do. A nutjob with nukes isn't nearly as scary as these dictatorial types with oil."

IronChefMorimoto

Re:Yes, but

[LionKimbro (200000)]

When it get's attached to this. [epiloglaser.com]

BORING

[by Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was going to be an interface consisting of three psychic kids in tanks making all your decisions before you. That would be much more useful.

Re:BORING

[John Seminal (698722)]

I thought it was going to be an interface consisting of three psychic kids in tanks making all your decisions before you. That would be much more useful.

They would do a better job than Bush. Hell, three not-so-psychic kids would do a better job than Bush.

Re:BORING

[Lehk228 (705449)]

somebody call a fucking WAAAAAAAmbulance

You asked for it

[T-Ranger (10520)]

A Beowolf cluster of spider monkeys using these 21st century PowerGloves could do a better job then Bush.

Wow - this technology is so new....

[tonsofpcs (687961)]

It has been being done for years by the film and video industry, albeit mainly not in realtime, but such places as the Liberty Science Center [lsc.org] had interactive games that used contrasting colors to determine what the player was doing [they had basketball for sometime where you wore either a chroma-blue or chroma-green glove]

Re:Wow - this technology is so new....

[LnxAddct (679316)]

Wouldn't it be easier to just put 5 little transmitters on the tips of the fingers and triangulate all fingers. It'd be much more accurate and have much less noise in the data. Some may argue that itd be too battery intensive, but there could be two solutions. A) The transmitters would be very low power because the distance needed wouldn't be very much and no intense processing would be needed on their part, they just have to send out some unique signal with time data. I know bluetooth devices now (PDAs and

Re:Wow - this technology is so new....

[plover (150551)]

Well, if you had position and orientation for each fingertip pad, there'd pretty much be only one position the hand could be in to achieve it. The rest of the parts of the fingers and hand could be interpolated.

Try an experiment: fix your wrist, then position your fingertips in any configuration. Now, try moving any of your hand or finger bones while keeping the fingertips in the exact same position and orientation. It's very difficult, and you probably can't move those other bones too far.

Besides, it would be very rare indeed if the orientation of the second and third knuckles independent of the fingertips would be relevant to the task being performed. And even if that were true, trying that experiment shows me the interpolated position probably wouldn't vary by more than a few degrees at most.

Getting back to data gloves in general, I always thought the real data glove from many years ago was a clever piece of engineering. The one I remember seeing had an IR transceiver mounted on one side of each joint, and the IR beam was interrupted by variable width "vanes" affixed to the other side of each joint. The degree of flex was correlated to the amount of IR that was passed through the isolator. No moving or rotating parts to wear out (except for the glove,) and no friction for the user.

Johnny Mnemonic

[headkase (533448)]

Finally, a good explanation for the data-gloves Reeves used in the movie.

This looks like a great recipe for an accident :/

[Paris The Pirate (799954)]

I am way too clumsy to be trusted with one of these things. I have visions of my self slipping and dragging everything where it is not supposed to be dragged. Or something. Maybe I just fear change.

Re:This looks like a great recipe for an accident

[michaeldot (751590)]

Then you better try the Apple solution: it will only come with one glove.

Re:This looks like a great recipe for an accident

[AJWM (19027)]

the Apple solution: it will only come with one glove.

Correction: a mitten.

Re:This looks like a great recipe for an accident

[Spy der Mann (805235)]

Specially if you sneeze in the most inappropriate moment.

More than a defence contractor

[9mm Censor (705379)]

Raytheon is more than a defence contractor. They make alot of commercial electronics, including alot of marine equipment such as radar and radios.

imagine the "training aid"

[FredThompson (183335)]

A buddy of mine used to defend Windows Solitaire while in the Navy by claiming it was a clever interface training aid. That worked on every senior officer who complained about "playing games."

What "training aid" will ship with these gloves? Virtual handball?

Ooohhh...VirtualBoy on steroids!!

Has potential (that's being wasted)

[menace3society (768451)]

The advantage of using gloves is not to get a more intuitive, 3-D version of the mouse. The advantage to gloves is that you can have more than one (or two) pointers on a screen. Imagine using photoshop or some other editing software, and, instead of having to mouse around or hit keys to change tools, you just contracted a different finger. Touch typing is much faster than hunt-and-peck; why shouldn't the same be the case for graphical interfaces?

Because it is exhausting

[brunes69 (86786)]

There is a reason none of these VR interfaces never go anywhere. The human body is not designed to hold it's arms suspended in mid-air for extende dperiods of time.

Try it yourself - stick your hands in front of the monitor, a bit below level with your shoulders. Feel free to move them around as if you are "manipulating".

Now, see how long you can hold them up there before your shoulders give out.

Now compare that to how long you can use a keyboard and mouse in one session.

It is not even in the same ballpark.

Re:Because it is exhausting

[AJWM (19027)]

I'd mod you up insightful but I've already commented here.

That was exactly my first thought -- waving your arms around is bloody tiring. Heck, I like to have my mouse tracking set so I can pretty much move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other by just flexing my fingers, the heel of my palm pretty much rests in one spot (and in a different spot when using the keyboard).

Re:Because it is exhausting

[Xzzy (111297)]

Given the sedentry lifestyles we live today, I'd think getting tired using a computer is good, both in the sense it burns a few more calories, and discourages extended periods of usage.

Re:Because it is exhausting

[Tlosk (761023)]

It is and it isn't. Anytime you try doing some physical activity you are unaccustomed to there will be an adaptation period where you experience fatigue and soreness. Once your muscles have adapted though you hardly notice it at all.

If you never take the stairs, try walking down 8 or 10 flights of stairs, the next day your calves will be thrashed, but if you do it every day you won't even notice it a bit.

Or try mixing concrete by hand, uber hard labor if it's not something you're used to, but run of the mill for people that do it regularly.

Holding your hands in the air isn't exactly hard labor lol, although I suspect we'd also do it standing just like they did in the movies, the kinematics of moving your arms and hands is very different standing than it is sitting.

Re:Because it is exhausting

[brunes69 (86786)]

For one thing, an orchestra conductor's hands are *frequently* at his sides for periods throughout the piece.

For another, I don't know of many people conducing 8 hour symphonys 5 nights a week.

Do they also replicate the part of the interface..

[brunes69 (86786)]

.. where to copy a file from one side of the room to the other, they essentially use a ***giant floppy disk***? Sure, it was a cool floppy disk, with live action video playing on it, but still... its a floppy disk.

You'd have thunk that by the time they had perfected 3D holography and VR manipulation, they could at least have kept up with some high-capacity networking. I guess not - floppys are the future!

Re:Do they also replicate the part of the interfac

[flonker (526111)]

Perhaps it was a security measure. An air gap, if you will. (Not to be confused with the "air gap firewall" marketing BS. [whalecommunications.com])

Jim Allchin: "That'll be in Longhorn too."

[michaeldot (751590)]

Tomorrow's news today: Microsoft invites bloggers with high readership to dinner. Shows them previews of Minority Report style interface. Bloggers write gushing reports about it.

I'm Impressed

[Effugas (2378)]

In tech, we often find ourselves referring to the Hollywood Operating System. You know, the one where every key press makes a "click" sound, and passwords are cracked one character at a time (admittedly, something that actually worked against Windows 9x file shares).

I was actually impressed with the UI in Minority Report. I'm not saying it was necessarily perfect, but it wasn't obviously ridiculous either. There is a need to monitor information flows across many different sources, to simultaneously sense them, and to have the ability to integrate on demand. A large display with linkable data nodes is one approach that deserves further analysis.

Interesting, but misguided

[MyIS (834233)]

I see this as being pretty exhausting after prolonged use. Perhaps if minute hand movements were translated into large gestures on the big screen... but that's what a conventional mouse does. I think the most revolutionary part would be to make "drag-drop" thing a lot more physical, i.e. add small amounts of inertia to dragged objects. Also, Google for the copy-paste pen device - really nifty stuff.

Are you crazy?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I get so lazy sometimes, that instead of leaning all the way up to the keyboard, I copy and paste letters to spell out words with the mouse, and you want me to USE MY ARMS!?!?!!?!!?

I'll need to down a bottle of water just to get my computer out of sleep mode.

Gestures are a gateway interface :)

for the curious

[same_old_story (833424)]

John Underkoffler came from MIT's tangible media group [mit.edu]

Interface

[sbillard (568017)]

Push/Pull
Slide/Spin/Twist
Grab/Grip/Grok/Associate
Wipe/Toss
...So many more distinct gestures/commands are possilbe.
I read a lot of Phillip K Dick and the interface portrayed in Minority Report was wonderfull.... not the goop-pool..... I'm refering to the the big screen Tom Cruise manipulated.... the goop-pool interface is the opposite extreme.
Nice story...original author highly recommended.

it makes me wonder. Which side are you on?

Hoppy Harrington says "Hi"gher

Accuracy?

[LordoftheFrings (570171)]

I wonder how accurate this would be. Would it even be really useful for first person shooters that require pinpoint precision? I would say no, but then again, I'm somehow fairly accurate with a mouse, so my hands can be accurate with training. I'm not sure about the whole arm bit though.

Also..

[pherthyl (445706)]

Have a look at HandVu [ucsb.edu] for something that works right now.

I was planning on writing something similar to this (actually, very similar, same libraries and everything) but now may just build on top of the HandVu libraries instead.

Cool now my carpal tunnel will move to my shoulder

[bxbaser (252102)]

eom

Add voice too.

[headkase (533448)]

As other posters have pointed out, it would be difficult to hold your arms up for extended periods. However, if paired with good voice recognition imagine mostly talking with occasionally moving/adjusting objects.

This is what I do at my work, but ours is better

[bobbabemagnet (247383)]

At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, we are implementing something we call the HI-Space table, which uses a camera to track hand motions as well. Ours doesn't need special gloves, though. You can walk up to the table and move your hands around and it watches any number of hands, doing any number of poses. It detects objects that are placed in the space and recognizes them if they are in the database. We have voice recognition, too, so it can respond to spoken commands.

One of the best things about our system is that it is completely untethered and intuitive. There is no training period, and no device to put on. You are interacting with the digital world by manipulating in the physical world.

I write applications for the table. There are a lot of issues that come up that you wouldn't normally think about. For example, with many hands in the space, it's easy to have people doing conflicting things. Actions are not so clearly defined, either. For example, when selecting a button, do you point to it? For how long? What if your finger moves a little?

We are currently conducting user studies to see in what ways the HI-Space table is better than the desktop and cave environments, and we're looking for other applications and organizations interested in using this technology.

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/hispace// [washington.edu]
http://www.pnl.gov/infoviz/hces// [pnl.gov]

contact me at bob [dot] baddeley [at] pnl [dot] gov

Re:Where do the $5,000 toilet seats go?

[FredThompson (183335)]

The U.S. military has operated in 3 dimensions since the Civil War.

This might be useful in air combat control. There's got to be a limit to what can be conveyed on a flat computer screen or edge-lit piece of glass.

It might also be useful for detecting patterns in huge amounts of data. You've probably seen images where data is represented by a 3D projection. If you could manipulate the interpretation from inside, maybe you could see patterns more readily than from a fixed viewing point outside the system.

Re:Where do the $5,000 toilet seats go?

[zippthorne (748122)]

Pretty dangerous if you pick your nose or scratch your crotch, though, don't you think?

So it's an interface for third base coaches?

the government hides spending better than that

[mnemonic_ (164550)]

I wonder what congressional district the defense company is located in?

Raytheon has facilities in almost every state. They merged with Hughes a while back, and manufacture a wide variety of defense equipment, especially in the aerospace sector.

And where in the field will this be used?

The article says, in the field of satellite reconnaissance imagery. It'd be like using a mouse, except you can move more than one screen object at once with the fluidity of every day hand motions. Far more efficient.

Am I the only one who gets scared when I imagine what a room in the pentagon might look like, with Generals wearing special glasses, and moving projected data off walls?

Probably. Most men are made of sterner stuff.

Re:Where do the $5,000 toilet seats go?

[YrWrstNtmr (564987)]

This appears to be wasteful spending.

Someone probably said the same thing about ARPANET.

I wonder what congressional district the defense company is located in?

Edward J. Markey [house.gov] (Ranking Democrat on the Telecommunications and Internet subcommittee)

Raytheon is based in Waltham, Massachussetts, but they have offices everywhere. Canada, Japan, Oz...
And they are Linux friendly. [prnewswire.com]

And where in the field will this be used?
One use might be a virtual sand table. Not everything the military does is 'in the field'.

Am I the only one who gets scared when I imagine what a room in the pentagon might look like, with Generals wearing special glasses, and moving projected data off walls?

Probably.
Generals don't move data. They direct Col's and Majors to do that.

"virus'"

[mnemonic_ (164550)]

I've seen a lot of stupid ways of writing the plural form of "virus." A single apostrophe is probably the stupidest.

Re:Big deal...

[1u3hr (530656)]

when they get the computer interface from swordfish...

The one that gives you a blowjob while you code?

Re:Seems like an awfully inefficient UI

[Planesdragon (210349)]

Seems to me it's a very inefficient interface...requiring large arm-waving motions to do menial tasks like moving windows

it is. But it wasn't designed to be a computer UI. It was designed to work with the thought-process of the user.

Have you ever stood up and walked to think? Ever wanted to guesture and put something on the wall?

It's a useful technology. Not one that you'd use next to your keyboard, but one that you'd use to direct a media stream or command a hundred distinct fire-teams.

Re:Seems like an awfully inefficient UI

[Frumious Wombat (845680)]

It has the advantage of scale. Moving macroscopic windows about on a desktop-sized screen, with many of them located in your peripheral vision, helps with your thought process. The movements, while not ideal for typing, are also normal, daily, real-world-sized motions, which don't requires as much of a mental shift. Since you're not trying to adapt to the unnatural one hand, 1-2 finger (depending on how many buttons your mouse has) interface, and can move freely, you're spending less energy adapting your