Steve Jobs took the lead on touch and
Microsoft is playing
catch up. Steve Jobs stole the Graphical User Interface - a big jump from what existed before - from
Xerox, and
Bill Gates stole it from Jobs. But it was Gates that won the
PC wars.
But there is something beyond touch. That is gesture. And there Microsoft seems to be ahead. Gesture promises to be even more intuitive than touch. It is exciting what they might do.
Point and click feels one dimensional. Touch feels two dimensional. Gesture feels three dimensional. It is a paradigm shift.
Microsoft's Plan to Bring About the Era of Gesture Control
The company wants to make it as common to wave your arms at or speak to a computer as it is to reach for a mouse or touch screen today. ..... "We're trying to encourage [software] developers to create a whole new class of app controlled by gesture and voice," says Peter Zatloukal, head of engineering for the Kinect for Windows program. ...... "We initially used keyboards, then the mouse and GUIs were a big innovation, now touch is a big part of people's lives," he says. "The progression will now be to voice and gesture." ... A conventional keyboard, mouse, or touch screen can be difficult to use in classrooms and hospital wards, or on factory floors. ..... Microsoft needs software developers to create killer applications. Along with the hardware, the company provides a software developer's kit, or SDK, that offers a range of ready-made tools, including voice recognition and body-part tracking .... by using infrared, your apps can see in the dark now ..... Nissan has introduced a gesture-controlled system for dealerships that lets prospective buyers look inside a virtual version of a new car. ...... It even trumps voice recognition, he says. "Voice recognition is 95 to 98 percent accurate, so one time in 50 it won't work," he says. "This works like a tool—it will work for you every time." ...... "When using a computer today, we think of our bodies as a fingertip or at most two fingertips," he says. But humans evolved to communicate with their whole bodies. .... detecting fidgeting or defensive body language such as folded arms. The hope is to address the social cues that are lost when video calls replace face-to-face communication
