in the camera stupid!
A couple of weeks ago I watched the Jobs/Gate/Mossberg interview from 2007. Gates made an excellent point about computer controls. CCD cameras are cheap and the software for scene, facial, eye and gesture recognition is powerful and readily available. Doesn't this make a heap of sense as the ultimate in desktop computer interfaces? Microsoft has demonstrated and will introduce camera based motion control on their xBox. I can't believe I never thought of this, even after Microsoft's gaming related announcements. I had to hear it in the context of that discussion, and then again it sounded almost as if most of the audience and Mossberg himself glossed over it. A sort of, "ho-hum, still won't replace my mouse keyboard etc..." Maybe not, but the discussion veered a bit into people's comfort levels and expectations for interfaces, and as a supplement to those, the idea is potentially brilliant.
In the case of something like the iMac, the camera is already there, maybe some software is all it takes to introduce some basic motion control.
One problem that might be easy to anticipate involves unintended motion being interpreted by the machine as a command. That could get frustrating in a hurry. It would need some kind of signal that you intend to use motion control, but doing so would take something that should be fluid and make it tedious.
There is a possible, simple and cheap, answer: Add a second iSight. With two "eyes" your iMac would have stereoscopic vision and the ability to very accurately judge distance. It could be programmed to ignore everything behind you; or to watch your hands in the bottom of its peripheral vision (would require wide-angle lenses); or to only allow certain UI controls when you raised your hands within six inches of the screen, or some combination of all three... Make it smart enough and you can fluidly move between keyboard, mouse, and gesticulating wildly in front of your iMac.
Thoughts?