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Aucbvax.2345 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works Sat Jul 18 04:25:45 1981 mice,balls,touch-plates,pens. >From MINSKY@MIT-ML Sat Jul 18 04:18:29 1981 I feel that the pen-mouse-ball discussion is reactionary -- though many of the ideas are realistic and practical. But all of them look back to non-interactive sensors of the past. Suppose the terminal could SEE the user -- using a couple of little vision-boxes. Then (i) it could watch your hands. You could point to your icons on the screen in a really natural way. A tracking cross would permit higher resolution, and the cursor would move at a rate, say proportional to some power of the distance between where it is and where you point. Then, one could use some more AI to distinguish "intentional" hand motions from tremors, etc. A smart such box could watch your eyes and face, too.

If you like holding a pen, that too could be wireless -- because the vision system would track its point. Such systems could work in three dimensions. The vision box would observe your eye-point. When you move your head, the various windows would move in accord with 3-d occlusions, and this would permit more on a cluttered desk than the usual methods -- moving your head a couple of inches to the left would uncover the next layer below on each stack -- etc.

Given a lot of R&D, such gadgets could be made in the next few years, and would be as important as speech inputs. We need a "terminal vision machine" project. Also, aren't the CRT schemes rather reactionary, if flat TV stuff is coming in the next year or two? Instead of vertical displays we can soon have (i) desk-surface displays for near vision and (ii) wall projected screens for far vision.

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