As I've written about previously, we're starting to move beyond the familiar keyboard and mouse/touchpad, and two-handed game controller as ways of interacting with our computer systems. In the gaming world, the motion-sensing Nintendo Wii remote is the most obvious innovation. Elsewhere, multi-touch screens, either on the large scale (Microsoft Surface) or small scale (Apple iPhone) have been garnering a lot of attention.
(Credit:
3Dconnexion)
Another interesting category is the six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) controller. These aren't particularly new but, until recently, they've been targeted primarily at 3D CAD professionals and have been priced in line with relatively expensive engineering software. If you're spending thousands of dollars for a CAD package, spending a few hundred for a piece of hardware that lets you use it more easily is pretty much a no-brainer. (Devices of this type are also a good match for controlling robotics.)
However, more recently, 3Dconnexion, a wholly owned subsidiary of Logitech, has pushed down the price point considerably with its SpaceNavigator line. The SpaceNavigator PE is $59 (MSRP) for a non-commercial use license with online support and the SpaceNavigator SE is $99 (MSRP) for a commercial use license with full support. (The two differ only in licensing and support; they're otherwise physically identical and support the same software.) The company has now updated its lineup with the SpaceNavigator for Notebooks, priced at $129. It's a bit smaller than the standard SpaceNavigator and, at .55 pounds, weighs about half as much. It also includes a small case.
I've been a fan of the original SpaceNavigator for a while now. It makes a huge difference to navigating through Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth. I tried out the new SpaceNavigator for Notebooks with these applications. All other things being equal, I marginally prefer the larger size and greater heft of the desktop model. However, if I were regularly using a 3D application on my notebook while traveling, the new device's design strikes me as a reasonable tradeoff for the weight and bulk savings.
The company calls the SpaceNavigator a "3D mouse" but that's a misnomer. It's only a mouse in the sense that it's roughly the same size as a mouse and you operate it with one hand. If anything, it's closer to a trackball. However, it's really its own class of input device and does not, in any case, replace a mouse except for navigation (specifically) within about 120 supported 3D applications. But it's understandable that "6DOF controller" might have been a wee too geeky for the general population.
6DOF refers to the fact that you can use the controller to generate six different motions. Pressing it front/back and left/right are the two motions that correspond to moving a mouse around the desktop. Pressing down and pulling up translate you vertically ("z" dimension for the mathematically inclined); this corresponds to altitude or zooming in Google Earth. The other three motions are those familiar to joystick users: rotation around the three perpendicular axes, i.e. yaw, pitch, and roll (or spin, tilt, and roll as 3Dconnexion calls them).
At least for me, actually using the controller feels intuitive even if it's a bit hard to explain how it works. It's a fun toy even if you don't have a serious need for one. (One hint. For Google Earth, I prefer to turn off tilt in the controller's customization panel. The tilt rotation is the one that lets you look at the surface of the earth from an angle. I typically prefer to keep the view from straight over head and, if tilt is on, it's hard not to shift it a bit while you're moving around the surface of the globe.)
We put stuff into computers (and, for that matter, get stuff out) in pretty much the same way we have for a good couple of decades.
Of course, we still use keyboards of a fairly standard design as our primary mechanism to feed words into a computer and mice are well-ensconced as the navigational tool of choice. Over in the gaming world, it's the familiar two-handed game controller that predominates. In fact, I sense that one sees fewer joysticks, steering wheels, various oddball keyboards, and trackballs than one saw in the past. This probably reflects that "productivity" PCs are shifting toward notebooks on the one hand and that gaming is moving toward consoles on the other.
The one clear counter-example is the emergence of "thumbing" (as opposed to typing). But this is really more about making compromises in service of the form factor of handheld devices than it is a genuine innovation--however commonplace it has become.
However, we may be starting to see some genuine change.
The motion-sensing Nintendo Wii remote isn't a particularly new concept. We've see academic work in data gloves of various types going back to the 1990s. What's different is that the Wii is mass market. Volumes mean not only lower cost, but an incentive for software makers to write games and other applications that support and use the device in interesting ways. Because it corresponds to the physical world, hand movement seems a natural fit with many tasks and manipulations. As a result, I expect that we'll see descendants of the Wii in increasingly widespread use.
Another big trend we're seeing is multitouch. As CNET News.com's Tom Krazit notes, it's Apple that has pushed this technology into the mainstream--starting with the iPhone in the handheld arena and the MacBook Air in the notebook space. (On the notebook, it's the touchpad rather than the whole screen that is multitouch and it's less of a big deal as a result.) I've been arguing for a while that being able to draw a "napkin drawing" or a "whiteboard sketch" is one of the things that's largely missing today when we work and collaborate remotely. The combination of multitouch and writeable LCDs at affordable price points, and supported by software, would be a genuine step forward.
These aren't the only possibilities. Six-degrees-of-freedom controllers have long been used in 3D engineering programs but they've been priced for the CAD professional. Logitech has come out with the affordable (about $55) 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator PE (Personal Edition) 3D Navigation Device version that makes a great Google Earth companion. If 3D virtual worlds ever take off in a big way, devices such as these would be a natural and obvious fit.
Then there's always voice recognition. It's getting better. But that could be a statement for just about any year. And general-purpose voice recognition remains a niche. You won't catch me betting on it (although I suspect its time will come--someday).
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