The ability to control documents and images with simple intuitive hand gestures is changing the use of computing devices to be more similar to that of actual physical acts of moving papers from place to place on a desk, changing orientations, and zooming into particular portions of a document. Apple is one of the first companies to incorporate these capabilities into their products – most notably the iPhone and now the super thin tablet Macintosh, the MacBook Air. However other companies are also working on the inclusion these capabilities into current and future products.
Once again, it wasn’t Macintosh that developed this technology, although they seem to be the first company to recognize it’s potential and widely commercialize it into product development. There are a a number of smaller companies that are working on this technology.
Most of these functions are controlled by specific hand or finger gestures as opposed to using the keyboard or the mouse. These functions seem to be a precursor to the capabilities that were displayed in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie movie “Minority Report” in which from a command and control center, Tom moved documents across a large screen to organize thoughts and gather pertinent data.
At this point it’s challenging to see how these capabilities could be incorporated into product development innovations to simplify the usefulness or simplicity of using various computing devices in a much more intuitive fashion.
Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal Article Video that demonstrates some of these capabilities:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid452319854/bctid1380790834
Here's the full link if you want to read the entire article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120174029197330447.html?mod=djemptech
Know thy Customer
Chris Hawkes
chawkes@marketresearch101.com
