Alex Wright

demoware on a Spielberg budget

June 22, 2002

interface geeks, get thee hence to see Minority Report - possibly the closest thing I have seen to interface porn.

the movie offers a steady diet of whizzy "interface of the future" concepts - none of which, it must be said, are particularly new (the movie owes at least several tips of the hat to MIT Media Lab, PARC, IBM and Stanford, among others i'm sure) - but watching the movie, i could only sit there slack-jawed at the skill, credibility, and even beauty with which Spielberg's crew was able to realize some of these ideas.

a few that stuck with me:

• gestural interfaces using data gloves for searching, retrieving and manipulating images
  
• learning robots with a sort of adaptive mass mind intelligence
  
• room-sized transparent projection environment
  
• "liquid" newspapers (and cereal boxes)
  
• personalized video greeting bots at the Gap
  
• holographic home movies
  
• plus cool concept cars and all the other usual sci-fi gimcrackery you might expect
  

not to mention it's a durn good movie to boot.

File under: User Experience

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