Oblong’s G-Speak makes Minority Report come true
The funniest thing about this is that I watched Minority Report last night, I swear to God, it’s true. And I was giggling to my self when Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) was using the at the time, very futuristic and very cool large screens and controlling content with his cyber mittens, and I thought to myself “Really, would this be useful at all? It all looks so complicating and jumpy and I dunno, fancy useless” (see video below). And of course, Oblong slaps me in the face.
So Oblong Industries is developing the g-speak spatial operating environment. Right. I was watching the two videos (below) and it’s just sick. I have no idea really how this is achieved, but it all seems a bit jiggly, but seriously… How cool is that!?
“The g-speak platform is built around free-hand, three-space gestural input. Applications are controlled by hand poses, movement and pointing. Finger and hand motion are tracked to 0.1mm at 100 hz; pointing is pixel-accurate. Two-handed and multi-user input are fully supported.“
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
G-Speak is supposed to offer “solutions to real-world problems” including:
- analysis of large data sets
- operation of three-dimensional interfaces
- construction of efficient multi-user collaborative applications
- integration of large screens and multiple computers into room- and building-scale work environments
- development of large-scale applications that run interactively across enterprise networks
luminous room demos from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
The platform, that runs on Linux and Mac, is apparently already in active use at Fortune 50 companies, government agencies, and universities. Here’s a list of application areas:
- Financial services
- Telepresence
- Network operations centers
- Logistics and supply chain management
- Military and intelligence
- Automotive
- Natural resource exploration
- Data mining and analytics
- Medical imaging
- High-touch retail
- Trade shows and theatrical presentations
- Consumer electronics interfaces
I can’t say I understand what all this mean in practice, but it sounds legit. What I would love to see is a hands-on video from either of the above mentioned institutes where someone actually puts this to use with an intent. Maybe we could see a true purpose of this, one we can understand. But for now, I guess it’s all wow-and-awe.
More at oblong.com, CrunchGear and Engadget
