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This man makes the user interfaces you see in films. (Video)
Bonus: Top 10 Worst Portrayals of Technology in Film
posted by seanyboy on Dec 3, 2009 - 184 comments

Awesome Interactive Laser Demo (via) [more inside]
posted by nfg on Aug 6, 2009 - 19 comments

Courtesy of Daniele Gallifa's Mentegrafica, a video demonstration of Multi-User Interaction using Handheld Projectors. An update to the classic Ghostbusters toy, this set of position-aware hand held projectors lets users share information by shining light onto walls. Some of the smart details in the video include: sharing calendars by overlapping light from two projectors, adjoining projections to create larger screens, and blurring private information when outsiders are nearby. No mention of applicability to first person shooters.
posted by migurski on Dec 15, 2007 - 9 comments

Computer interfaces from science fiction. Some of these interfaces (such as Minority Report) may be close to reality, while others are are being built by fans, and many more are just bad ideas. And, for reality's sake, there are also references to Windows in science fiction. See also this presentation about biometrics in science fiction [note: mp4 movie, the presentation starts about 20% in, and features Leprechaun 4: Leprechauns in space.].
posted by blahblahblah on May 2, 2007 - 43 comments

The Symphony OS. Microsoft may have tired something like this before, but it certainly doesn't look as pretty. This beta linux distro is sporting something called the Mezzo Desktop environment. Under its hood resides a http server and a Mozilla renderer which allows you to run any applications coded with HTML, Javascript and PERL. Think small "Web 2.0" applications on your own computer or more Dashboard widgets for tracking your FedEx packages. You might not get your extended family on to the alterative OS bandwagon, but a different conceptualization of the desktop never hurts. Instructions on how to get it running on Ubuntu are here.
posted by phyrewerx on Apr 15, 2006 - 40 comments

Frog Review - Talking frogs review websites.
posted by carter on Apr 15, 2006 - 18 comments

Do you suffer from mobile telephone calls at inopportune times? Could you use a cute PA to take calls for you while gaming, or asleep? A dissertation project from MIT by HCI specialist Stefan Marti may have your solution: Cellular Squirrel.

Of course you will always want to talk to people who are thinking the same things as you, so Cellular Squirrel waves and moves about rather than making a sound. His oddly bulbous figure makes use of "socially strong non-verbal cues like gaze, posture, and gestures, to alert and interact with the user" rather than intrusive alerts in order to minimise user stress and social disruption.

Cellular intermediaries also come in two other flavours: "a parrot and a cute bunny"
posted by NinjaPirate on Aug 26, 2005 - 12 comments

World's First HCI Rap from OK/Cancel, the human computer interaction/interface design comic.
posted by joshua on Feb 9, 2004 - 7 comments

Modern computing born... film at 11.
"On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface."
posted by pascal on Jul 11, 2001 - 5 comments

"You are about to activate your first gesture command in Opera. A gesture command is activated by pressing the right mouse button, and while holding it down, performing a simple movement with the mouse, and then releasing the button"... such as left going back a page, or down opening a new window. Aliens bless gesture interfaces, and Molyneux.
posted by holloway on Apr 11, 2001 - 17 comments

Cliques in chat! This is one of the most unique chat apps I have ever come across. What do they serve in the food over at MIT anyway?
posted by Brilliantcrank on Oct 6, 2000 - 2 comments

Why tab based interfaces suck This site finally fell into interface hell. Originally they used tabs as navigation and still are now... BUT it doesn't work... Watch... every ecommerce company that copied its interface will also fall into the same interface hell... The others include ebags.com, urbanfetch and more....
posted by efader on Apr 8, 2000 - 8 comments