Consumer Electronics Show

I attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week. It is a huge trade show where the latest electronics from around the world are on display. Since the demise of Comdex, CES has also included displays from some of the major computer and software companies. Here are a few of the user interface related things I saw at the show.

Gestural Interfaces

3DV Systems showed games and media applications that the user controls through hand gestures. A camera recognizes the gestures so the user does not need to hold a controller or wear gloves. Some applications required that the user learn specific gestures such as to control menus and make selections. Others were free form and natural such as making boxing motions to use a boxing videogame.

Toshiba demonstrated a DVD player where the user could control playback by pointing a finger in the direction they wanted to video to advance or putting their palm up in the universal sign for stop.

Microsoft showed Surface – a computer built into a table with a multi-touch interface.

CNN has an article discussing some of these products at http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/01/10/ces.pcwii.ap/index.html

A somewhat related area is devices that sense the presence of a user and react to it. For example, iTouchless demonstrated a trash can that opens when you move your hand over it or throw something at it.

Large Displays

Displays are getting larger every year. Much of this is being driven by the HDTV market, but many of these TVs can also be used as computer monitors. The largest this year was a 150 inch plasma TV from Panasonic.

There is also a trend toward connecting multiple displays together to provide a larger virtual workspace. Crown Trading Systems demonstrated a stock trading application that utilizes 16 monitors driven from a single computer.

Programmable Keyboards

Several companies showed programmable keyboards where tiny displays were built into the keytops. This allows the icons or labels on the keys to be dynamically reassigned. I worked on banking applications at IBM where we dramatically improved productivity for certain applications by creating custom keyboards optimized for the tasks the user would perform. These programmable keyboards hold the potential to customize the keyboard dynamically for multiple applications.

Biometrics

Biometric devices such as thumbprint readers and iris scanners are being built into some computers. Some organizations are requiring this. For example, I have a friend who does software development at a large bank. They use an iris scanner for access to the facility because is much more secure than ID cards, passwords, etc.

Haptics

Delphi had some good examples of haptic controls. They have developed controls which provide haptic (touch) feedback when the user operates them to, for example, control the radio or climate controls in a car or change what is shown on the instrument panel. Haptic feedback helps the user make changes without having to take their eyes off the road. The Delphi system allows the user to change the nature of the haptic feedback to whatever an individual user prefers or finds most effective.

Many game systems also had haptic controllers that give the user feedback on what is happening in the game.

Ambient Devices

The Ambient Orb has been around for a couple of years now. It is an internet connected device that glows in different colors to indicate changes in data such as stock prices or the weather.

These devices are now being built into more things, such as an umbrella where the handle glows to inform the user when rain is predicted and they should take the umbrella with them. The devices are also being expanded to provide feedback through more than one indicator. A whimsical example is the iBuddy. It is an angel-like figure designed to be used with instant messaging. Its body glows to indicate when a friend is online and the wings flap when you receive a message.

Robots

Many robots in a wide variety of forms where on display at the show. Some are very sophisticated with the ability to move, to avoid obstacles, to grab and manipulate objects and to connect to the internet. One salesman told me he has programmed his robot to come into his bedroom in the morning and wake him up by singing, then move to his children’s rooms and wake them. It then comes to the kitchen to read him the news and weather while he has breakfast.