Ergonomics

Beyond Google Glass: The Evolution of Augmented Reality

The wearable revolution is heading beyond Google Glass, fitness tracking and health monitoring. The future is wearables that conjure up a digital layer in real space to “augment” reality.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Reality isn’t what is used to be. With increasingly powerful technologies, the human universe is being reimagined way beyond Google Glass’ photo-tapping and info cards floating in space above your eye. The future is fashionable eyewear, contact lenses or even bionic eyes with immersive 3D displays, conjuring up a digital layer to “augment” reality, enabling entire new classes of applications and user experiences. 

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Leap Motion: Control PC With Hand Gestures

Gesture-based computer interaction, as depicted in “Minority Report,” looks like it will soon become commonplace. “The Leap” peripheral lets you control UI elements using gestures made in the air.

The mobile revolution has prompted not only new forms of computers but also new ways to interact with them.

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Invoked Computing: Device-free Ubiquitous Augmented Reality

A research group at the University of Tokyo are creating a new paradigm in Human Computer Interaction. Dubbed ‘Invoked Computing’ the idea is to turn everyday objects into computer interfaces and communication devices.

“For example, if you make a gesture, the computer should be able to recognize this as “I want to use the telephone”. So with an iPhone for example, you have everything in a small device and you have to learn how to use it, here we want to do the opposite, the computer will have to learn what you want to do.”

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Illusions Send Shivers Down a Gamer’s Spine

SurroundHaptic Illusions Send Shivers Down a Gamers Spine
You are playing a video game, and your avatar is creeping into a haunted house at the dead of night. Suddenly, you freeze in your chair. Something is crawling up your back…

Whether this idea appeals or not, researchers at Disney have made such sensations possible by inventing a system that fools players into thinking that objects are moving against their skin.

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BrainDriver: A Mind Controlled Car

brain driver BrainDriver: A Mind Controlled Car
Imagine you could drive your car using only your thoughts. German researchers have just made that possible – and they have the video to prove it. Following his recent interview on the Robots Podcast about autonomous vehicles, Raul Rojas, an AI professor at the Freie Universitat Berlin, and his team have demonstrated how a driver can use a brain interface to steer a vehicle.

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Microsoft Is Imagining a Natural User Interface Future

NUIsurvey Microsoft Is Imagining a Natural User Interface Future
You don’t have to look very far to realize that technology is becoming more natural and intuitive. In a typical day, many people use touch or speech to interact with technology on their phones, at the ATM, at the grocery store and in their cars. The learning curve for working with computers is becoming less and less of a barrier thanks to more natural ways to interact.

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Designs for Avionics and Synthetic Vision Link Pilot with Environment

SmartView Designs for Avionics and Synthetic Vision Link Pilot with EnvironmentDesigns for avionics and synthetic vision rely heavily on human factors research

People interact with machines in different ways – with their eyes, touch, voices, and even their brain waves. These human factors are important when designing cars, home theaters, and especially commercial and military aircraft cockpits.

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Microsoft Develops Shape-Shifting Touchscreen

touchscreen thumb Microsoft Develops Shape Shifting Touchscreen

Microsoft this week filed a patent application covering a novel way to construct a “tactile” touchscreen – a display that uses technical tricks to convince users they are actually touching the ridges, bumps and textures of a displayed image.

Whereas previous screens produced only an illusion of texture, Microsoft proposes producing a real texture, using pixel-sized shape-memory plastic cells that can be ordered to protrude from the surface on command.

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