Raytheon's knockoff of the Minority Report UI

We aren't normally too fond of drawing comparisons between sci-fi flicks and tomorrow-tech, but we can't really avoid defense contractor Raytheon's gloved user-interface inspiration, which was admittedly pulled from the Philip K. Dick film-adaptation of Minority Report. Apparently the Air Force and feds are interested in the system for its ability to enable commanding officers command of a quicker interface for navigating the huge amount of logistics data during a battle. As always, we know it's also got a lot to do with certain high-ranking military officers wanting to be a little more like Tom, and perhaps a mite bit of a crush on Sam Morton.

[Via Defense Tech]

[DAKH @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

My Power Glove is in the trunk of my car--that qualifies me for at least Captain or Major, right?

[zenprime @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Notify me when I can get the nifty desktop setup Tom had in precrime. HL2 would kick on that!

[r3m0 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

too much movin about if u ask me, but who did? arg well i mean like if it was home user type stuff

[Mootaz Dinana @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

A Thesis Project in our CS Department at AUC (The American University in Cairo) is actually about this.. the Glove thing interfaces with the PC as a normal USB Human Interface Device.. A Generic Mouse that is.. and it fully imitates the action in the minority report movie..

[James @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I'm always curious why people think this would be such a great way to work. One of the advantages of our current "hands-off" style if computer interaction is the fact that we don't have problems with our bodies obscuring what we're trying to do. This is one of the most persistent problems in handheld computeing as the smaller the screen is, the more of it you're covering up just by using it.

I admit it looks neat but my professional opinion is that barring some sort of sculpting program there's not much use for this stuff. I'm wary of whoever their experts are who think that this will be more efficient for viewing and manipulating a lot of data.

Sometimes more people is the right solution for interface problems.

[Finishing.Law.School @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Tom Cruise needs to turn that L upside down and glue it to his forehead

[Defense Contractor @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I have done work in human factors for DoD, and this has always been talked about as a bad idea. Imagine having to move your arms about wildly to operate the mouse. Your arms will get tired very quickly. That is the beauty of the mouse; since short precise movements tend to be better than long sweeping ones.

[Duncan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Ok-Cancel had a great take on this last october:

http://www.ok-cancel.com/comic/3.html

[Crocos @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Best comment from the article:

"Raytheon has no plans to use psychically-sensitive crack babies to parse the information. Or, at least, not yet."

_all_ class :D

[Buis @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I think they should contact FingerWorks, because their TouchStream keyboards with Xwinder make me feel like Tom every day. Well, you know what I mean.