If you are anything like me, when I first read the headline about the Tactiva touchpad I didn’t really take notice. After all, the capacitive touch sensing principle that most touchpads use hasn’t seen any major advances for a long time. But the Tactiva doesn’t seem to use capacitive touch, but a camera instead.
What this means is that it is capable of allowing you to use multiple fingers to provide input. Not only that, but it also has integrated tactile response, though it looks like it would be hard to use a keyboard at the same time. To get an idea of how interesting this could be, check out the demo movies.
For me, maybe what is more interesting than the hardware is the software that uses multiple mouse pointers. In the second demo its clear that their own custom application has support for any number of simultaneous mouse pointers. I wonder if it would be possible to get similar functionality by using two USB mice connected at the same time.
I think it is crucial that we start to look at things like this and push the boundaries of our established interaction paradigms. Computers don’t need to be something that only one person with one keyboard and one mouse interact with.
Tactiva — Introducing the TactaPad
Thursday, July 21st, 2005
I completed an initial iteration of PushPad for the first-year ACE show: Eccentric Orbits. The project was a success in that it inflated, but that’s about it. I learned a lot of things from this project, mostly that sewing is hard, and that interaction design of something whose physical form I wouldn’t understand until it was built is pretty hard.
Here is the statement that went up on the wall next to the mostly non operational project.
PushPad offers a unique perspective on the development of interactive systems beyond the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. This prejudice against the continuing domination of this as the one and only ideal computer interface comes from a belief that additional opportunities for meaningful interfaces into interactive systems can be achieved if alternatives to this paradigm were more readily available. Using technologies such as passive radio tags (RFID), conductive ink and yarn and design that attempts to encourage collaboration, Pushpad attempts to challenge our conception of computer interfaces as rigid and single-user.
I plan on improving this project over the next month or so. Primarily, the system needs more input from the real world. So I’m looking at integrating some pressure feedback and touch sensing. But before that I need to do some more interaction design.