While talking with John Underkoffler last night about FoC-related topics, it occurred to me that his work doesn't seem have much visibility here, so: https://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_pointing_to_the_future_of_ui

Ashamed that I've forgotten having watching this.

Wow. And that's a demo from 2010. What has happened since then?

Ah, the famous “Minority Report” interface. This is a great example of technology (demos) designed to make an impression but which lacks substance. I’m torn between thinking that such demos do provide a benefit in that they can show us crazy possibilities, even if they don’t work out that way in the end, but also that such demos might cause more harm because they normalize wrong incentives: just have something cool to demo (and figure out good use cases for it later). I love a good demo as much as everyone else. But please impress us with your rigor to have figured out a good solution to a problem. Unless you work in Hollywood. Then keep doing your thing and make sure that each depiction of a futuristic computer interface is as ridiculous as you can make it — I am certainly entertained by that.

I’m not sure how his optimism make me feel. He mentions that computers will have all those capabilities in 2015. I don’t particularly feel that this kind of interface would be useful for my day to day interaction with a computer, but on the other hand, not much has evolved in the last 10 years 😞

@Konrad Hinsen He founded a company that sold into various sectors and recently left that company to work on new FoC ideas that have more in common with @Ivan Reese's Hest than this interface. I'll hopefully get to share some things here soon. @Stefan I suppose you don't like Bret's work either, then.

@Jack Rusher What makes you think so? I specifically chose the word “substance” over words like, e.g. “product”. That said, I like Bret’s work much more than his (early) demos.

@Stefan I find positive visions of potential futures important, which is why I don't have much sympathy for criticisms of Bret's early output as "just demos". Inspiration has tremendous value! Same for John's work here. This is also one of the (many) reasons I think artists are so important to the future of tech. As an example, consider John's "let's move this work item between screens" demo in the above video to what French digital artist Cyril Diagne is doing here: https://twitter.com/cyrildiagne/status/1256916982764646402

I guess what I really mean is much harder to convey. Maybe a better approach is: look for people who are not immediately impressed by flashy demos, and can see a difference between designing to impress vs. designing to solve a problem. Then work with the latter kind.

I think I understand what you're saying, though -- of course -- . I will just give one more lens to maybe help you see what I'm getting at: when I do science, I'm driven by curiosity. I want to find something out, scratch an itch, imagine a possibility and chase it down. When I do engineering, I look around for the parts that I can assemble to solve a problem in the sense you seem to be indicating here. Often, the things I use in an engineering context are things that were invented in the course of working in the scientific mode. The artistic mode and the scientific one are exactly the same for me in my own practice, and they both benefit the engineering mode by providing these possibilities. (I should add that quite often an engineering problem is what prompts the curiosity that leads me to chase something in the scientific mode. The above schematic is an imperfect map to the phenomenological territory, but it serves to convey my support for all these modes of action and their outputs.)

@Jack Rusher I think we are closer than it seems. I can totally get behind what you are saying. But there is something about the demo above that triggers me. The demo above looks like pure theater to me. Oh, you can sort these images by color in a fancy moving animation? Why? And when he calls his colleagues on stage and they do… what… exactly? His hand movements are overly expressive, more than they need to be, even for 2010 technology. (Which is important for what Tom Cruise does in the movie! It would be boring to watch otherwise.) That looks like theater to me. It feels staged for impact without having a real message. Bret’s demos some would also consider staged. If they are, then they are staged (well) for making a point. And impressively so. I can get behind that!

The impressive thing about the Minority Report demo is that all the evidence is immediately to hand, so he can pull it together, compare and contrast etc. The motion controls are a complete red herring, it would be equally as effective with keyboard and mouse.

For me: • Art provokes. • Science systematizes. • Engineering actualizes. Now @Chris Knott, if your interaction maps well onto 3D translations and rotations, motion controls are much better than mouse and keyboard. 2D translations play best with mouse. Then keys/buttons for discrete events. This should all be obvious, but with the newness of motion controls, their utility at their best is really remarkable.

Yeah I agree there are definitely areas where motion controls are not a gimmick. These things need to be seen as complementary. One example is voice control which is currently only use as a sole input device. In the real world voice is very often paired with pointing. I'd like to be able to speak to my IDE to do those jobs like refactoring which are buried away in menus, but primarily I'm going to be on kb+m.

When I delivered a couple years ago, there was someone backstage afterwards who criticized the way I'd done the talk — getting the audience involved, having them clap for the artwork they liked, and so on — because it contained too much showmanship. As someone else in the conversation pointed out, many would consider a bit of stagecraft an improvement after a day of presenters mumbling through dry presentations featuring illegible slides. I think it's important to keep in mind that different audiences need to hear things said in different ways, and that what seems like hollow showmanship to you might be exactly what inspiration looks like for someone else. So, with that in mind, perhaps this video featuring smaller gestures and a wand interface might be more to your taste. 🙂 https://vimeo.com/174223351

I’m in no position to criticize John Underkoffler’s work. Yet I did. That was wrong. The demos are impressive, no doubt. And I can see how many will find them inspiring. I loved that scene in Minority Report, and I thoroughly enjoy any weird HID visions that show up in all kinds of movies, from science fiction space operas to later James Bonds. I also enjoyed your talk, @Jack Rusher, you linked above. You combine showmanship with interesting content in an entertaining way. You show off great work, provide helpful information, and tell an interesting story.

@Stefan surely what you saw with Underkoffler’s talk matched unfavorably against your prior experience. It happens.

@wtaysom Yup, you’re absolutely right. I came to that exact same conclusion and am thankful that @Jack Rusher was stubborn enough to take several attempts at giving me a chance to see the value in such an approach.